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To: Pontiac

“Funny how so many great strides in the advancement of medicine have been made by accident.”

They still don’t know what penicillin really is. I mean it is a mold, but what sort? It has never been found in the wild. It wafted in though an open window and was ‘discovered’ but they have never isolated it in the wild. Ever bit of penicillin we have came from that one wayward spore.


14 posted on 09/02/2016 12:28:51 PM PDT by TalonDJ
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To: TalonDJ
They still don’t know what penicillin really is. I mean it is a mold, but what sort? It has never been found in the wild. It wafted in though an open window and was ‘discovered’ but they have never isolated it in the wild. Ever bit of penicillin we have came from that one wayward spore.

Not to prove you wrong but you made me curious so I looked it up. According to Kenyon.edu the original Penicillium strain is no longer used. But another site I looked at did say that the original strain was rare.

One of the things Penicillium is most famous for is the drug penicillin. It was used to create the first antibiotic. The originial strain, Penicillium notatum, was discovered in 1920 by Sir Alexander Fleming. However, it was replaced with Penicillium chrysogenum, a more productive species, which is now the species used in manufacturing penicillin.

20 posted on 09/02/2016 1:02:12 PM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)
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