Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: antibiotic revolution

  • Chance in the origins of antibiotics

    William KingstonDublin, Ireland The discovery of antibiotics has been described as the “domestication of microorganisms” and ranks in importance with the domestication of animals as part of settled agriculture about 10,000 years ago. It depends upon antagonism between bacteria, which had been noticed as early as 1874, and Pasteur commented then that if we could…