I think penicillin is one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century. Hundreds of years ago the average lifespan of humans was only 20-30years. Three out of ten babies died before a year after they were born and half of the them passed away before the age of ten. That was because of diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, malaria, smallpox, cholera, etc. Humankind had no clue about these cause of the diseases. They just assumed that these diseases came from curses or bad air at best. It was Pasteur and Koch who finally found out that most of these came from microbes. Studies on microbes showed a progress through years and years and in 1928 Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, which is one of the first antibiotics that were effective against many previously serious diseases. Fleming knew penicillin would be effective to kill bacteria,but he couldn’t find a way to purify it. A Team of Oxford research scientists led by Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain devised a method of purification that was the key to its mass-production. Penicillin saved a large number of lives during WW2 and it led the development of lots of other kinds of evolved antibiotics. The most important reason why I think penicillin is the best invention is because it saved my father’s life when he was suffering from pneumonia when he was in the military. It goes without saying that I wouldn’t exist if penicillin had not been discovered!
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