Medicines Before Antibiotics

Medicine Through Time – Antibiotics, 1920-2000

In this course, Dr Robert Bud (Science Museum, London) examines the history of antibiotics. We take a look at what medicine and medicines were like before the discovery of antibiotics. We then look at the discovery of penicillin and how it was mass produced in the 1940s. We then look at the growth in the number of other antibiotics and how this went hand in hand with the development of the pharmaceutical industry. In the penultimate module, we take a closer look at antibiotic resistance and how this affects the world today. In the concluding module, we examine the impact of antibiotics on medicine, the pharmaceutical industry and public attitudes towards germs and illness.

Medicines Before Antibiotics

In this module, we take a look at medicine and medicines before the discovery of antibiotics. In doing this, we see three key points: (i) medicine was a marketplace of many different treatments; (ii) medicines could not be relied upon to cure infection; and (iii) by the 1930s, new medicines were emerging.