When a pet dies, your dog is sick, and all the clothes appropriate for the interview you have today aren't clean, it's good to turn on the news and/or study diseases in third-world countries. I mean, so what if my white shirt's not clean, atleast the thin layer protecting my brain and spinal cord is intact. That will impress the interviewer, eh?
What's even better than feeling glad that you're not someone else, is feeling glad for someone else. So the real topic of today's post is penicillin, an antibiotic which is used in the treatment of Meningitis.
Penicillin is made from Penicillium molds. As with other antibiotics it prevents the spread of bacteria by stopping the development of the cell wall. When it was first created it was considered a "miracle drug" because of its revolutionary ability to cure bacterial infections (props for big words?). This information along with a complete unneccessary history can be found here:http://www.herbarium.usu.edu/fungi/FunFacts/penicillin.htm. The basics of the history are that Alexander Fleming discovered the properties of penicillin and a bunch of other scientists found ways to make production better and found better types of penicillium molds to use. Penicillin was very important in WWII. If more information about the drug is needed. I'll post it later.
The pictures are from these pages:
The left one is the chemical make-up of penicillin and the right is a penicillium mold spore.
In other interesting news, Miles is allergic to penicillin. When asked about his penicillin allergy, Miles says, "I don't know what happens, I think I get like a rash or something." Fascinating, don't you think? He should get a Meningitis vaccine.
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