[Torg] Penicillin aside

[Chris]

just for giggles, since you enjoy the history of things:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoveries_of_anti-bacterial_effects_of_penicillium_moulds_before_Fleming

And one of the references (C.G. Paine and the earliest surviving
clinical records of penicillin therapy.):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1139580/

mentions Lister's use of it on page 49.


-chris

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:26 AM, Jon Woodman <drjon at minnesota-twins.net> wrote:
>
> Very cool info, Jasyn.  Thanks for sharing it.  I'm a veterinarian, so I always enjoy finding out the history of the medicines we use.  And the stuff about the fermentation process being the real driving factor is very interesting information.  I never would've realized.
>
> Jon
>
> >------- Original Message Follows -------
> >From: "Jasyn Jones" <jasynj at gmail.com>
> >To: <torg at justintimeadventures.com>
> >Subject: Re: [Torg] Penicillin aside
> >Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:33:45 -0700
> >
> >On Feb 26, 2010, at 8:50 AM, Jon Woodman
> >wrote:
> >
> >> Penicillin first was discovered in the 1920's and used clinically as an antibiotic in the 1930's.
> >
> >Finding a reliable source is difficult, especially through Google. So, I'm going to relate what this article says:
> >
> >http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/Penicillin.htm
> >
> >Noticed in 1896, story doesn't mentioned why or how or what it was doing to get noticed.
> >
> >Re-discovered in 1928, where it was observed that the mold killed bacteria around it.
> >
> >1939, began research into it, proved it could kill bacteria. This was in England. The war drove them to America.
> >
> >In Peoria, Americans were developing methods to rapidly grow fungal cultures. In 1941, British scientists brought samples to America. Most effective sample came from a moldy cantaloup in a Peoria market. 1943, clinical trials were finished.
> >
> >Price is a good indicator of scarcity. "The price dropped from nearly priceless in 1940, to $20 per dose in July 1943, to $0.55 per dose by 1946."
> >
> >The critical factor making penicillin possible on a large scale wasn't the medicine itself, but breakthrough in fermentation allowing to be mass-produced efficiently.
> >
> >I am sure other sources are more authoritative, but this will do for now.
> >
> >>  The other factor is that penicillium rarely occurs by itself in nature, so you'd only ever encounter it in combination with other fungal material which does not have positive properties.
> >
> >Yeah, eating moldy food is usually a bad idea.
> >
> >> As an aside note, as da Vinci's work occurred during the renaissance, wouldn't that be considered a temporary localized raising of the tech axiom?  I think the renaissance was even mentioned in the Torg rulebook as such when axioms were discussed.  Not that that's either here or there.
> >
> >Everyone talks about Da Vinci's work, and I'm sure it was very forward looking, but I don't know how far in advance of the Tech axiom of his day he actually was. As an inventor, much of his work was "science fiction"- devices he imagined, but which were not practical or possible.
> >
> >By itself, this wouldn't indicate a Tech axiom rise, but any practical work he did towards building working prototypes would have pushed the axiom upward.
> >
> >(I theorized that PE inspires visions of higher advances, Tech and otherwise, so in Torg terms this is what it could have been.)
> >--
> >Jasyn Jones
> >jasynj (at) gmail (dot) com
> >
> >"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
> >Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson
> >
> >Check out my Torg webpage, Storm Knights:
> >web.me.com/stormknights/
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >Torg mailing list
> >Torg at justintimeadventures.com
> >http://www.justintimeadventures.com/mailman/listinfo/torg
>
> _______________________________________________
> Torg mailing list
> Torg at justintimeadventures.com
> http://www.justintimeadventures.com/mailman/listinfo/torg