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Penicillin

In Our Time

CHAPTER

The History of Penicillin Resistance

When Penicillin was coming into general use, I was eight. If it hadn't been for Penicillin, myself and millions of other people in that situation would quite likely have died. So really one, it gives you a fresh interest in this question of resistance. Every hospital used to have a septic ward before antibiotics were available - these were not very pleasant places. Surgery was used as the last resort because people were frightened of infection. The sort of cancer chemotherapy, which we currently use to immunospress people, we couldn't possibly consider that without use of antibiotics.

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