Word: staphylococci
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...noticed that the mold had cleared a wide, bacteria-free area between itself and the staphylococci-perhaps had killed them. He did not destroy the moldy culture...
...story of his discovery is legendary. Back in 1928 Alexander Fleming, M.B., B.S., F.R.C.S.,* taught bacteriology at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, University of London. In his small, old-fashioned laboratory, he grew staphylococci in petri plates (flat glass culture dishes). One day he found that mold had spoiled one of his cultures. Staphylococcus grew on only half of the plate. A blue-green mold spotted, but did not cover, the other half...
...test tube. In less than a week, there was a felt-like growth at the mouth of the tube and a half-inch of cloudy liquid below it. To Dr. Fleming's amazement, the liquid in which the culture grew, even when diluted 800 times, prevented staphylococci from growing at all: "It was therefore some two or three times as strong in that respect as pure carbolic acid...
...Propamidine is a new synthetic British antiseptic which attacks streptococci and staphylococci in wounds. Applied in a salve made of vaseline, it makes many wounds sterile in ten days. The salve is irritating to normal skin...
...relatively few bacteria." These are soon killed by body tissues, "if given a chance." Infection arises when wounds are washed with soap & water, or flushed with antiseptic. This is "almost sure to introduce many new bacteria, and the entire wound may thus become seeded with infectious organisms." (Streptococci and staphylococci, the British found, are usually spread in the hospital by nurses and doctors who do not use masks, or fail to disinfect their fingers...