Terme de Glossaire

Antibiotics are substances of microbial origin, which prevent other micro-organisms from growing or which destroy them. Unlike simple disinfectants, they perform a specific action, i.e. they deregulate the metabolism of these targeted micro-organisms without attacking the cells of the human body. The first antibiotic (*) was discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming, a Scottish doctor. Alexander Fleming had noticed that a strain of Staphylococcus aureus (one of his bacterial cultures) was invaded by a mould called Penicillium notatum and that bacteria stopped growing where this mould was present. He deduced that the mould secreted an inhibitive substance which he called penicillin. On February 12, 1941, a patient diagnosed with septicemia was the first person to be miraculously saved following the administration of penicillin. Since then, other classes of antibiotics have been discovered, such as gramicidin, tyrocidin and streptomycin. There are now some 10,000 antibiotics of natural origin, 80% of which come from bacteria and 20% from moulds. Not all are used for medical purposes.

(*) The same observation seems to have been made a few years earlier by a young French doctor called Ernest Duchesne, but there was no follow-up.