Please put your name on the back!!
Human Disease and Society
Assignment 15 – “Penicillin”
  1. In 1945, Fleming, Florey, and Chain received the Nobel prize for their work on penicillin. List 4 other scientists (and the year) that they observed the antibiotic effects of penicillin on bacteria.

  1. What did Gratia and Dath call penicillin?

  1. Briefly, overview the “dumb luck” involved in Fleming’s work with penicillin.

  1. What was the name of the mold he worked with?

  1. Why were initial attempts to repeat Fleming’s results unsuccessful, i.e., what was it about his initial (luck) experience that proved to be important? WE

Reviewer's comments…
  1. What was Fleming’s main interest in this new chemical?

  1. What characteristics of penicillin (aside from the fact that it was antibiotic) made it a good drug?

  1. Early medical procedures used to treat (bacterial) infection focused on what two techniques?

  1. How did the scientific perspective (held by Wright) which prevailed at St. Mary’s hospital in London (where Wright and Fleming worked) influence the development of penicillin as an antibiotic?

  1. Prior to penicillin, a group of drugs known as ______were used to fight against bacteria. These drugs came about, in part, because of the (chemical) technology used by the German dye industry. In 1927, Domagk developed a drug called ______that was effect in combating bacterial infection in mice. The active ingredient in this drug was ______.

  1. What was the limitation to the use of these drugs?

  1. Florey and Chain (1940) were able to isolate an extract of penicillin that was ___% pure, yet this mixture when diluted 1 to ______was still very effective in inhibiting bacterial growth.

  1. In spite of its potency, one of the biggest difficulties faced early on, was getting enough drug to meet the demand. What were some of the factors that increased the yield of penicillin?

  1. Why was penicillin particularly good for treating “blood poisoning”, a condition in which microorganisms have migrated to and are magnifying in the blood?

  1. How would YOU describe the results of penicillin in the early clinical trials?

  1. Loewe et. al. proposed the use of heparin (an anticoagulant) with penicillin. They theorized that heparin would prevent clotting and thus enable penicillin, which was thought to accumulate in clots to have greater exposure to bacteria. Although they attributed their increased success in clinical trials to the combined use of heparin with penicillin, the improvement was (more likely) a factor of what?

  1. What, in your opinion, was the greatest impetus for determining the efficacy of penicillin? Please explain/support your answer.

  1. What was the initial dosage and cost of penicillin compared to that used by Loewe et. al.

  1. What was one of the major ethical issues associated with the discovery of the antibiotic effect of penicillin? Where would you have stood on this issue and why?

  1. What is the message the author is trying to make in the last paragraph of this chapter?