→ Antibiotics are chemical substances which is produced by microbes. It kills pathogenic microbes or slow down their growth.
→ This chemicals are called antibiotics.
(anti=opposite, bio=life)
e.g. Penicillin is the first discovered antibiotic.
→ Discovery :
→ Alexander Fleming while working on staphylococci bacteria, once observed a mould growing in one of his unwashed culture plated around which staphylococci could not grow.
→ He found out that it was due to a chemical produced by the mould and he named it penicillin after the mould penicillium notatum.
→ This antibiotic was extensively used to treat American soldiers wounded in world war II
→ Fleming, chain and flory were awarded the Nobel prize in 1945, for this discovery.