Word: penicillin
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Then the Dillingers went to work to convert tribesmen who relied on charms and fetishes to fight the evil spirits. Lorraine, a nurse, used penicillin to cure yaws and iodine to treat goiters. The medical treatment and the Dillingers' radio seemed miracles to members of the Stone Age tribe: they thought the disembodied voices belonged to their ancestors...
...more people indulging in sex, they are also more active?starting younger, marrying later, divorcing more often. The wider acceptance of oral sex has also played a role. Richard Hamilton, a San Francisco family physician and author of The Herpes Book, thinks science has wrought the herpes epidemic: penicillin allowed greater sexual contact with little risk, and the Pill and other contraceptives largely replaced condoms, which prevent direct contact with sores...
...1940s, when penicillin came into wide use, it was seen as the miracle drug to save the world from pneumococcal pneumonia, an infection that then had a mortality rate as high as 85%. But as more and more antibiotics came into use, nature fought back, creating more resistant bacteria. When first used, penicillin was nearly 100% effective against the most prevalent Staphylococci aureus that spread hospital-related infection among patients. Today the drug is far less effective. Both tetracycline and penicillin, once used to cure gonorrhea, now have a failure rate of more than 20% against certain strains. For years...
...penicillin for a whale
Tests on the mucus, which Hyman had collected by poking a giant Q-Tip into the blowhole, revealed four different types of pneumonia bacteria. The prospects seemed bleak. But scientists dosed the animal with penicillin and began serving it squid-a sperm whale favorite. Soon it started "sitting" higher in the water, raising its head and emitting the clicking sounds that sperms seem to use for communication or echo locating...