Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Penicillin

  • Albert Alexander: Unsung hero of penicillin

    JMS PearceHull, England Hartnup disease, Christmas disease, and Lou Gehrig’s disease are instances of the rare naming of diseases after the patients so afflicted. There are other medical discoveries, disorders, or treatments in which the crucial part played by the patient is unattributed. One example relates to the early days of penicillin. The story of…

  • Propagating penicillin in Peoria: From discovery to mass production

    Julius BonelloMichael NeffZoe DemkoPeoria, Illinois, United States One of the greatest medical achievements of the twenty-first century was the creation of penicillin. The road to this great achievement began almost 300 years ago when Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), a draper by trade who had no science background, wished to assess the quality of his threads.…

  • Dr. Marilyn Gaston’s lifesaving research

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “[W]e can seize the opportunity to honor the too-often-neglected accomplishments of [B]lack Americans in every endeavor throughout our history.”1– President Gerald Ford, 1976 Marilyn Gaston, MD (b. 1939), grew up in a poor family, with both parents working at low-wage jobs. She graduated from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in…

  • Dr. Oriol Mitjà: seeking to understand old and new infectious diseases

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Research needs to give answers to real problems.”– Dr. Oriol Mitjà Dr. Oriol Mitjà (b. 1980) earned his M.D. degree from the University of Barcelona. He then completed an internal medicine residency, followed by a fellowship in infectious disease. He earned a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the London School…

  • Recognition at last

    Jayant RadhakrishnanDarien, Illinois, United States “Though she be but little, she is fierce.” — William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream     The adage “out of sight, out of mind” appears to have been coined for microbes. We only think about them when they cause havoc, as in the current pandemic. Lately the situation seems to be…

  • Serendipity in science and medicine

    JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!”, but “That’s funny…” – Isaac Asimov Horace Walpole (son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole) coined the word “serendipity” in 1754. It was based on a Persian fairytale in which…

  • The discoverers of aspirin

    JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom In the short period between the years 1946-1950, three highly effective new drugs became available for clinical use in the newly established National Health Service. They were penicillin, streptomycin, and cortisone. Before this there were few potent drugs of proven benefit in the remedy of symptoms or disease. Since inflammation…

  • Memories of a West Virginia coal camp

    Calvin KuninColumbus, Ohio, United States This is a brief account of my experience as a physician at a coal mining camp in rural West Virginia. It is based on my memory of events that took place almost seventy years ago but remain vivid in my mind. The adventure began the day I graduated from medical…

  • Selman Waksman, “father of antibiotics” and conquest of tuberculosis

    Selman Abraham Waksman came to the United States in 1910 and worked for a few years on a farm in New Jersey. Born in a rural town in Ukraine in 1888, he had become familiar as a child with that country’s rich black soil and developed an interest that later influenced the direction of his…

  • Book review: Architects of Structural Biology

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Modern twenty-first-century high-technology medicine, which we now take for granted, was only made possible by remarkable advances in the physical and biological sciences of the twentieth century. In Architects of Structural Biology, the contributions of four scientific giants and Nobel laureates—Lawrence Bragg, Max Perutz, John Kendrew, and Dorothy Hodgkin—are described…