Antibiotics (1952)

This is a battlefield. A battlefield in man's total war against disease. For man has been fighting a total war against illness for centuries. A total war in every sense involving all peoples. A war in which man's weapons, both for defense and for attack, have been in the most part pitifully inadequate. [Music] Certain means for defense have existed now for some time, but it was only recently that we found what appeared to be a successful pattern for the production of offensive weapons against man's most terrifying enemy, the disease-causing bacteria. Here, man has locked his heaviest artillery against premature death, antibiotics. Thousands of lives were saved in war thanks to this killer of bacteria. Thousands of men spared crippling amputation. Wartime necessities speeded up research and production of antibiotics. And all of mankind benefited from it. This child infected with impetigo only a short time ago would have had to suffer for weeks. For medical science was almost powerless against the bacteria which cause skin infections of this sort. Now she will be healed in a few days. This student hurt in play, infected afterwards, will be in school in a day or so with the help of these miraculous drugs. This young woman, now still breathing heavily under an attack of pneumonia, will be back with her family in a short time, thanks to the help from man's most successful micro killers. What are these miraculous substances that kill bacteria? >> We call them antibiotics. In Greek, anti means against. Bios stands for life. Antibiiosis means that one living organism kills another. The term is not new. Observing nature, man has long known that each species must fight for its survival. The fittest survives and keeps the species strong and healthy. This natural antagonism keeps balance among the living creatures in nature. This is also true for the invisible world of microorganisms. The microscope reveals how one single cell animal feeds on another. This is what antibiosis means. But feeding on the weaker or killing the opponent is only one way in which antagonism is expressed. There are others. Some microorganisms produce in their normal life cycles chemical substances that will prevent other microorganisms from crowding them. This is their way of expressing antibiosis. Well, now that we know what antibiosis means, we may be able to answer what antibiotics are. Antibiotics are chemical substances produced by microbes which tend to inhibit the growth of other microorganisms and even kill them. In other words, antibiotics are not man-made drugs but chemical substances produced by microorganisms. >> Let's investigate this more closely in a biology laboratory. This small dish will help to demonstrate the action of antibiotics. This dish is filled with a jelly on the surface of which we grow a thin film of bacteria. These round bacteria are called stafyloacy. These bacteria would multiply in the human body just as they multiply in the laboratory culture medium. An English physician Dr. Alexander Fleming interested in bacteriology uh worked with a similar culture of stafylo cockeye but inadvertently a speck of dust fell into the dish carrying a mold belonging to the family of molds called penicyium. We have put such a mold into this dish ourselves. Now while impurities often spoil the pure lab cultures and are thrown away in this case Dr. Alexander Fleming decided to investigate their action. Several days later, he noticed what we're seeing now, namely that clusters of bacteria had spread all across the dish, but left a ring of clear jelly around the penicyium mold. Evidently, the mold was doing something to the stafylocy that prevented them from spreading into this area. Dr. Fleming tried dish after dish of the same bacterial culture, always with the same results. The penicyium mold fought off the bacteria. Dr. Fleming described his observations in a paper that at the time failed to stir the scientific world. But in 1938, after the success of sulfa drugs had rekindled an interest in healing with chemicals, a group of Oxford scientists under Dr. Flory picked up Fleming's experiments. From Fleming's observations and from Flor's research team and from the work that followed in England and America, a new science was born. The science of antibiotics. A new name was added to our vocabulary, penicellin. The name derived from the mold that stopped Fleming Staflaci and which belongs to the family of moles penicellium. Physicians all over the world use penicellin today. >> Mhm. That's very good. Her temperature's dropping. >> Fine. >> For this type of blood poisoning, penicellin is a sure weapon. You won't need to worry. We'll have her out of here in a week. >> Thank you, doctor. Goodbye, honey. [Music] Yes, doctors use penicellin with great success because now they have a potent killer of disease-causing bacteria which will not endanger the cells of the human organism. Here is why this is so important. Processes by which an organism lives, our own organism or that of a microbe are pretty much the same. Therefore, whatever would interfere with the chemistry of the microbe would in most cases also harm the human tissue. The problem is to find antibiotics that kill harmful bacteria but do not hurt the patient. Penicellin is such an antibiotic harmless to the human and effective against many disease-causing bacteria but not against all of them. New antibiotics are being developed. Each of them interfering in some way or another with the life cycle of some harmful microorganism. In measles, for instance, I think you're going to be all right, Kathy. It's the measles. All right. >> Certainly looks like it. >> If you'll give her this antibiotic five times a day, I think that will take care of the measles and those after effects that we worry about as well. >> Well, that's fine. Thank you very much, doctor. >> I'll see you later, Kathy. All right, honey. Here we go. [Music] Yes, antibiotics fight against many kinds of bacteria, each affecting some microorganisms in some special way. For instance, one group of antibiotics interferes with the ability of the microorganism to use up food to produce energy. While there is food in abundance all around the microorganism, its ability to use up the food is impaired. As a consequence, the microbe dies of starvation. Another [Music] group of antibiotics acts upon the thin membrane which envelops the cell and dissolves it. The microorganism practically falls apart under the attack. Penicellin belongs to a third group of antibiotics which probably interferes with the ability of the cell to reproduce. Bacteria and other simple microorganisms reproduce by dividing. A mature cell produces two identical cells by division. These cells mature and divide again, thus multiplying the species. In the presence of penicellin, cells of bacterial microorganisms grow to maturity, then continue to grow, but fail to divide. Eventually, the cells outgrow their own ability to live and they die. [Music] With these miracle drugs obtained from moles, man has made giant strides toward a total victory over harmful bacteria. And because many moles have their origin in the soil, a new research specialist came into prominence. The soil specialist known as the micologist. Micologists develop strains of pure molds, yeasts, actinomytes and hosts of other microorganisms. They guide them through their short life cycle and try to influence their life habits in such a way that they produce chemicals which can be utilized for the benefit of man. Thousands of mold cultures like these are studied in research centers. Once the right kind of microorganism has been found, it is isolated and pure strains are reproduced. Next, the pure culture goes to the fermentation chemists. [Music] They multiply the microorganisms by the hundreds of millions by providing them with a place to spread and with the best food. This ensures rapid growth and encourages them to produce the desired antibiotics. Then other specialists take over until the pure drug is obtained. Antibiotics, the miracle drugs of our time. Indeed, they seem to be producing miracles. Here, a flock of chickens is getting antibiotics in their food. A spoonful of antibiotic powder in a ton of food will increase the growth of chickens by 10%. [Music] Similar experiments with pigs are showing even greater promise. Vitamin and antibioticenriched foods bring the pigs to marketing weight more rapidly. By feeding the piglets antibiotics milk, they are weaned away from the mother after 3 to 6 days. In this way, the productivity of the SA can be doubled and runts and orphan pigs bottlefed to maturity. New industrial products have grown out of this experimental work. Millions of tons of chicken and swine feed fortified with vitamins and antibiotics are sold to successful farmers and poultry razors all over the country. In a world of neverending food problems, this is an important development. Thus, antibiotics produced by living microorganisms help mankind in the fight against hunger and in the fight against disease. Antibiotics give the doctor the heavy artillery to fight and conquer pneumonia to fight successfully deadly menitis to attack various streptoccus infections. But all the heavy artillery against the onslaught of disease has not yet been produced. This hospital and many others are still filled with the sick for whom we have no antibiotic cure. Therefore, research cannot stop. The era of antibiotics has just begun. Every day we are coming closer to a time when we will understand more clearly what goes on inside the minute chemical workshops of the cells. Every day we are widening the horizons of knowledge in the quest for a better, healthier, and happier future of mankind.