Word: penicillin
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Antibiotics, of which penicillin (rhymes with "all God's chillun") is the most famed, are now the objects of the most exciting search in all bacteriology. In dozens of laboratories, experts are looking for antibiotics to fight the many diseases penicillin cannot cure: tuberculosis, leprosy, cholera, dysentery, tularemia, salmonella food poisoning, many virus diseases. Already about 20 substances with such fancy names as clavacin, gliotoxin, patulin have been isolated from bacteria and molds, tested, discarded as either too weak or poisonous...
Smell of Earth. Last week came news of a new antibiotic that may be as great as penicillin. Called streptomycin, it is a product of the mold-like Actinomyces griseus, which helps to give newly turned earth its distinctive smell. The drug was discovered by stocky, energetic Selman A. Waksman, 56, Russian-born microbiologist at the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station in New Brunswick, and dean of U.S. antibiotic researchers. (The first to use the word antibiotic for these new drugs, he was writing on the subject years before penicillin's rise...
...Penicillin Streptomycinate?" Helped by money from the Commonwealth Fund, the Federal Government and big drug firms, Dr. Waksman and his dozen students now spend most of their time on streptomycin. Many other laboratories are experimenting on animals with the new drug, working out production methods. In six months there may be enough for a thorough tryout on humans...
Half seriously, Dr. Waksman predicts that since penicillin is an acid and streptomycin is a base, they may eventually be combined into a salt, "penicillin streptomycinate." The salt might be so effective against so many diseases that doctors would no longer have to make diagnoses; they could give it for all infectious diseases, and many of the courses in medical schools could be abolished...
...fever, a racking cough shook his 800-pound frame. Despite huge doses of sulfanilamide and an oxygen tent, he grew steadily weaker. Then Spitfire, a purebred Guernsey bull, achieved a measure of immortality-he became the first animal (outside a laboratory) to be treated with penicillin. WPB, which now has plentiful supplies for all serious cases, let his veterinarian have 2,500,000 units (normal human dose: 1,000,000 units). At week's end, the news from Hardwick, Mass. was better: after a few gigantic shots, Spitfire seemed definitely improved...