Word: staphylococci
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...story of his discovery is legendary. Back in 1928 Alexander Fleming 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. Staphylococci grew on only half of the plate. A blue-green mold spotted, but did not cover, the other half. He noticed that the mold had cleared a wide, bacteria-free area between itself and the staphylococci-perhaps had killed them...
...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 a growing body of evidence has suggested that the overuse of antibiotics...