History of Medicine: Part 13: Polio

Antibiotics 

Scottish man, Alexander Fleming, His elder brother, Tom, was already a physician and suggested to him that he should follow the same career, and so in 1903, the younger Alexander enrolled at St Mary's Hospital Medical School in Paddington; he qualified with an MBBS degree from the school with distinction in 1906.

Fleming, who was a private in the London Scottish Regiment of the Volunteer Force from 1900^[5] to 1914,^[11] had been a member of the rifle club at the medical school. The captain of the club, wishing to retain Fleming in the team, suggested that he join the research department at St Mary's, where he became assistant bacteriologist to Sir Almroth Wright, a pioneer in vaccine therapy and immunology. 

Fleming served throughout World War I in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and was Mentioned in Dispatches. He and many of his colleagues worked in battlefield hospitals at the Western Front in France. 

he witnessed the death of many soldiers from sepsis resulting from infected wounds. Antiseptics, which were used at the time to treat infected wounds, he observed, often worsened the injuries.

Antiseptics worked well on the surface, but deep wounds tended to shelter anaerobic bacteria from the antiseptic agent, and antiseptics seemed to remove beneficial agents produced that protected the patients in these cases at least as well as they removed bacteria, and did nothing to remove the bacteria that were out of reach.

Fleming also discovered that mucus has an enzyme in it that naturally fights bacteria. He tested other bodily fluids such as blood, hair and tears with his laboratory staff paid an extra three pence for every tear. 

Alexander Fleming’s penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic, completely revolutionised the war against deadly bacteria. Famously, the Scottish biologist accidentally discovered the anti-bacterial ‘mould’ in a petri dish in 1928.

Some of the mold had been repelled and he wondered what had caused it.

Fleming did not convince anyone that his discovery was important. This was largely because penicillin was so difficult to isolate that its development as a drug seemed impossible. It is speculated that had Fleming been more successful at making other scientists interested in his work, penicillin would possibly have been developed years earlier.

His problem was the difficulty of producing penicillin in large amounts,

Breaking the mold.

 However, Fleming’s incredible findings were not properly recognised until the 1940s, when they began being mass-produced by American drug companies for use in World War II. Two other scientists were responsible for the mass distribution of penicillin, Australian Howard Florey and Nazi-Germany refugee Ernst Chain, and their development of the substance ended up saving millions of future lives. 

Fleming was modest about his part in the development of penicillin and he praised Florey and Chain for transforming the laboratory curiosity into a practical drug. Fleming was the first to discover the properties of the active substance, giving him the privilege of naming it: penicillin. He also kept, grew, and distributed the original mould for twelve years, and continued until 1940 to try to get help from any chemist who had enough skill to make penicillin.

Following the medical breakthrough the British War Cabinet set up the Penicillin Committee on 5 April 1943 that led to projects for mass production.

In July 1943, the War Production Board drew up a plan for the mass distribution of penicillin stocks to Allied troops fighting in Europe. 

United States to produce 2.3 million doses in time for the invasion of Normandy in the spring of 1944. 

After a worldwide search in 1943, a mouldy cantaloupe in a Peoria, Illinois market was found to contain the best strain of mould for production.

During World War II, penicillin made a major difference in the number of deaths and amputations caused by infected wounds among Allied forces, saving an estimated 12%–15% of lives.

After World War II, Australia was the first country to make the drug available for civilian use. In the U.S., penicillin was made available to the general public on March 15, 1945.

Polio

FDR, healthy guy, feels bad one night, legs swell, doctor says he has polio and will never walk again. 

People had spine nerve damage and or breathing issues. People with issues breathing could only survive with something called an iron lung which was the ventilator of the time.

Patients stayed in it 2 weeks at a time unless they were really bad in which case they were I  it permanently.

Primarily affected children 

Tried to blame it on immigrants 

FDR famous sufferer and it's biggest philanderer. Fund raising for a cure.

Hit how bad it was to look strong and not be seen in a wheelchair. He made speeches standing with the help of leg braces, his bodyguard, a cane and holding himself up. He gestured with his head.

A radio personality helped spread the word of FDR's charity and asked everyone to put change in an envelope and send to DC. If every kid spared a dime it would do wonders. He wanted to create a march of dimes to the White House. 

18 million dollars in dimes

Jonas Salk 1955

Reporter asked him who owned the patent? Jonas said the people, can you patent the sun? 

Captain America had polio