Penicillin an Antibiotic: widely used against Gram positive organism!

Penicillins are a group of antibiotics derived from Penicillium fungi. Penicillin antibiotics are historically significant because they are the first drugs that were effective against many previously serious diseases such as syphilis and Staphylococcus infections. Penicillins are still widely used today, though many types of bacteria are now resistant. All penicillins are Beta-lactam antibiotics and are used in the treatment of bacterial infections caused by susceptible, usually Gram-positive, organisms.

The term “penam” is used to describe the core skeleton of a member of a penicillin antibiotic. This skeleton has the molecular formula R-C9H11N2O4S, where R is a variable side chain.

The first published reference of penicillium use appeared in the publication of the Royal Society in 1875. The use of bread with a blue mould (presumably penicillium) as a means of treating suppurating wounds was a staple of folk medicine in Europe since the middle ages.

Medical application was first conducted in 1930 Cecil George Paine, a pathologist at the Royal Infirmary in Sheffield, attempted to use penicillin to treat sycosis barbae–eruptions in beard follicles, but was unsuccessful. He achieved the first recorded cure with penicillin, on November 25, 1930, when he treated a gonococcal infection in an infant.

In 1939, Howard Florey, an Australian pathologist, applied to the Rockefeller Foundation to study penicillin and other bacteria. Florey, later working with biochemist Ernst Chain, found it difficult to make large quantities of penicillin in his lab. Using his Rockefeller connections, Florey was able to convince Merck, Squibb and Pfizer in the 1940s to produce the antibiotic in large quantities. In 1944, the drug companies produced enough penicillin to treat war casualties and severe infections. (Regards Wikipedia)

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