The History of Penicillin — Doctors Again Decided Who Got It

The History of Penicillin — Doctors Again Decided Who Got It Penicillin was once so scarce that Oxford pulled it back out of a patient's urine, and the man still died when the stock ran out. The video traces who decided who received the drug, from wartime rationing and the men of Macon County to a 2023 shortage. Alexander Fleming saw a mould stop staphylococci at St Mary's Hospital in 1928, and Howard Florey's Oxford team grew it in bedpans. Anne Sheafe Miller received about half of America's penicillin in 1942, and Chester Keefer reviewed every possible civilian case. Pfizer turned a Brooklyn ice plant into a deep-tank factory, and American penicillin went ashore at Normandy. The US Public Health Service cured four sailors of syphilis in 1943 and later kept the drug from the men of Macon County. Beecham's methicillin arrived in 1959, doctors in Britain reported the first MRSA in 1961, and in 2023 the FDA listed a shortage of Bicillin L-A. ⏱ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Albert Alexander's Unfinished Treatment 1:06 Fleming's Mould at St Mary's 3:34 Oxford's Penicillin Girls 5:59 Elva Akers's First Injection 7:33 Corn Steep Liquor in Peoria 9:06 Anne Sheafe Miller's Septicemia 10:33 Cocoanut Grove Fire Burn Patients 11:57 Mahoney's Four Sailors With Syphilis 13:16 Florey and Cairns in Tripoli 14:39 Chester Keefer, Penicillin Czar 16:26 Pfizer's Rubel Ice Plant 18:35 American Penicillin at Normandy 20:15 Hodgkin's Beta-Lactam Ring 21:35 Fleming's Nobel Lecture Warning 23:13 Macon County Men, Guatemala Experiments 25:55 Methicillin and the First MRSA 27:38 Peter Buxtun and Jean Heller's Story 30:19 2023 Bicillin L-A Shortage Subscribe for more hidden histories behind the objects you use every day. #history #documentary #Penicillin #AntibioticResistance #TuskegeeStudy