Essay On Antibiotics

Antibiotics are powerful medicines that fight bacterial infections. Used properly, antibiotics can save lives. They either kill bacteria or keep them from reproducing. Your body's natural defenses can usually take it from there. If a virus is making you sick, taking antibiotics may do more harm than good. Using antibiotics when you don't need them, or not using them properly, can add to antibiotic resistance. This happens when bacteria change and become able to resist the effects of an antibiotic.

Antibiotics are usually taken by mouth (orally). However, they can also be administered by injection or applied directly to the affected part of the body. Most antibiotics start having an effect on an infection within a few hours. It is important

They are derived from special microorganisms or other living systems, and are produced on an industrial scale using a fermentation process. Although the principles of antibiotic action were not discovered until the twentieth century, the first known use of antibiotics was by the Chinese over 2,500 years ago. Today, over 10,000 antibiotic substances have been reported. Currently, antibiotics represent a multibillion dollar industry that continues to grow each year. Triclosan and triclocarban are the most common compounds used as antibacterials in soaps, however several other compounds are also common.

Not all antibiotics are produced by bacteria, some are made completely synthetically in the lab. Among these antibiotics include the quinolone class, of which the nalidixic acid is often credited as the first to be discovered. Like other antibiotics before it the discovery of nalidixic acid has been chalked up to an accident, discovered when George Lesher was attempting to synthesize chloroquine. However a recent investigation into the origin of quinolones have discovered that a description for quinolones happened in 1949 and that patents were filed concerning quinolones some 5 years before Lesher's