Bacteria Flashcards
Bacteria
Microscopic, single-celled organisms. They are among the earliest known life forms on earth.
Most Deadly Bacterial Infections:
Tuberculosis
Anthrax
Tetanus
Leptospirosis
Pneumonia
Cholera
Botulism
Pseudomonas infection
MRSA infection
E coli infection
Meningitis
Gonorrhea
Bubonic Plague
Syphilis
Professor Alexander Flemimg
- The discovery of antibiotics began by accident. September 3 1928 was having a clean up of his lab, it was messy. He studied bacteria.
- Some of his glass plates had grown bacteria as part of his research. One of the plates had mould on it.
- The mould was in the shape of a ring and the area around the ring seemed to be free of the bacteria.
-It took 10 years, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain isolated the bacteria killing substance found in mould and it’s called penicillin
Charles Fletcher
- In 1941, Charles had heard of a dying patient as a result of bacteria getting into a wound.
- He used some penicillin on the patient and the wound made a spectacular recovery.
-Fletcher did not have enough penicillin to fully rid the patient’s body of bacteria and he died.
What is significant about WWII and penicillin?
- Florey got an American drug company to mass produce it and enough was available to treat all the bacterial infections that broke out among the troops in the second world war.
- Penicillin got nicknamed the Wonder Drug and in 1945 they were rewarded with a Nobel prize
How has the average human life span changed since the discovery of penicillin?
Because of this discovers it went from 56.4 years old to 80 years
No zone of inhibition
resistance, the ring around bacteria on a Petri dish
antibiotic resistance
When antibiotics are used incorrectly in human or animal medicine—for too short a time, or too small a dose, at inadequate strengths, or for the wrong disease—bacteria are not killed and can pass on survival traits to even more bacteria. This results in stronger infections, increased illness and even death.
