Our body has a natural defense mechanism that kicks into gear whenever a foreign substance enters it. When the body’s normal defenses is not able to prevent or overcome a disease, antimicrobial drugs can be used to fight off the disease. One of the most important discoveries of modern medicine was antibiotics. Things have changed from where little could be done to treat many lethal infectious diseases to now, where some of these drugs could be called “miracle” drugs.
The concept of chemotherapy, a form of treatment that uses chemical substances to fight off a disease, was first discovered by Paul Ehrlich, a German physician and scientist, during the early part of the 20th century. Ehrlich was attempting to stain bacteria without staining the surrounding tissue, when he speculated about a “magic bullet” that would be able to find and destroy pathogens but not harm the host. In 1928, Alexander Fleming, a Scottish biologist, observed the growth of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, and he saw that the bacteria was inhibited in the area surrounding the colony of a mold that had contaminated a Petri plate. This mold ended up being identified as Penicillium notatum. In 1940, the first clinical trials of penicillin took
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Polymyxin B is effective against gram-negative bacteria. It is available for topical use in the antiseptic ointment that also contains bacitracin and neomycin. Rifampin, is used in tuberculosis therapy. The drugs inhibit the synthesis of mRNA. The first of the quinolone group was nalidixic acid, which inhibits the enzyme DNA gyrase needed for DNA replication. This led to the development of the fluoroquinolone group. Blocking a cell’s ability to synthesize essential metabolites is another mode of drug action. Sulfonamides (sulfa drugs) act by competitive inhibition of folic acid, which is an important coenzyme needed for synthesis of proteins, DNA and