Hi, now we are going to discuss a very important result of the effort of our great scientists antibiotics general overview which was a magical medicine when a lot of people died due to just very simple bacterial diseases.
Now it is well known for controlling various bacteria diseases but there was a time when people got panic in some bacterial diseases which is today a simple disease and can be cured easily. We will not discuss antibiotics in a medical science approach but in a biological science approach to understand its importance and mechanism.
Table of Contents
What is Antibiotics:
It is a biological phenomenon in which an organism secrete some chemicals which restricts the growth of other organisms or sometimes cause death of harmful microorganisms and this phenomenon is called antibiosis.
Different microorganisms and fungi are used to produce chemicals to restrict the growth of other harmful microorganisms but it is not useful for viruses. But it is very useful for bacterial diseases otherwise before the discovery of antibiotics some minor cuts sometimes cause death.
But after discovering penicillin it became very easy to handle the bacterial diseases and the discovery of penicillin happened suddenly when a small amount of fungus came in a bacterial culture by mistake.
It was observed that the growing fungus Penicillium can check the growth of bacteria which was the first time when we started to use this as medicine in the form of antibiotics.
Production of Antibiotics:
Production of antibiotics means the rear of antibiotics producing microorganisms in controlled ways on a large scale through the process of fermentation. Microorganisms are reared in a fermentation tank in the presence of optimum pH, optimum temperature, proper supply of nutrients for their proper growth.
The growing microorganisms produce antibiotics which are then collected from the fermentation tank and purified through different processes then finally the purified antibiotics are converted into their crystalline form.
Importance of Antibiotics:
Due to discovery of antibiotics we do not get afraid of the simple bacterial diseases which were known for death in previous times. In previous times, the simple common cold was very dangerous because there was no effective medicine to control microorganisms but after the discovery of antibiotics it is a very simple disease which can be cured easily by administration of antibiotics.
Some antibiotics can restrict the growth of harmful microorganisms while some cause death of microorganisms but the damage caused by microorganisms can not be prevented through the antibiotics.
Examples of Antibiotics:
Now we will discuss some antibiotics with their importance in controlling various bacterial diseases.
Penicillin:
It was the first antibiotic which was discovered by Alexander Flemming who was a Scottish bacteriologist during a bacterial cultures observation when growth of bacteria was restricted for the presence of fungi in bacterial cultures.
But it happened due to mistakes and this mistake was a blessing for humans after discovering penicillin and other antibiotics also discovered one by one. Penicillin can be used for treatment of different bacterial diseases which is obtained from a mould Penicillium notatum.
But there is also a negative side of antibiotics if we do not use it properly, overuse can cause development of antibiotics resistance in harmful bacteria. Because when we use antibiotics in all cases when it is not necessarily it makes the bacteria exposure to antibiotics more which can cause an increase in the number of the resistant variety in bacteria culture.
Because some mutations in bacteria help the bacteria to grow in the presence of antibiotics but selection of those bacteria causes invalidity of antibiotics so then antibiotics do not restrict the growth of bacteria like before which decreases the efficiency of antibiotics over time and we need to search for new antibiotics.
Reference: Antibiotics General Overview
Read More: Structure and Function of Antibody
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