[The participation of the USSR in development of penicillin industry in the Eastern Europe].

The article considers on the basis of analysis of archival documents issue of rendering assistance by the Soviet Union to the countries of Eastern Europe to organize production of penicillin. It is established that by the mid of 1950s, modern powerful plants were launched in Bulgaria, Romania and Czechoslovakia by the forces of Soviet engineers . Their construction was carried out on preferential terms for countries-customers. The mutually beneficial cooperation in sphere of production of antibiotics carried out and with other countries of this region. It is demonstrated that the USSR, performing task of enormous humanitarian significance in conditions of the Cold War, simultaneously implemented another goal - formation of loyalty of population of these countries and organization of coalition of friendly states on its Western borders.

Alexander Fleming: a second look.

In 1928, Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) identified penicillin, the world's first antibiotic. It was a chance discovery that could have easily been missed had Fleming not taken a second look at a contaminated Petri dish. The discovery of penicillin marked a profound turning point in history as it was the first time deadly infections such as bacterial pneumonia, sepsis, diphtheria, meningitis, and puerperal fever after childbirth could be cured, and it paved the way for the development of additional antibiotics. The Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum, one of several London Museums of Health and Medicine, is a reconstruction of Fleming's laboratory in its original location at St. Mary's Hospital. As if stepping back in time, visitors gain a glimpse into the man, his bacteriology work, and the events surrounding this important finding. For those unable to travel to London, this article provides a brief narrative of the fascinating story.

[Penicillin: from discovery to patenting the large-scale production process]. / Penicilina: da descoberta ao patenteamento do processo de produção em larga escala.

This article examines discoveries, inventions, and innovations related to penicillin by sampling activities to solve technological problems which can be traced by the distribution of scientific articles, government reports, innovations, and patents between 1929 and 1945, and proposes reflection on the importance of scientific progress for national security. The analysis highlights the technological trajectory and outcomes in the area of intellectual property, considering US policy implemented to catalyze innovation and provide institutional conditions to meet national defense needs as an important factor, although this did not necessarily imply a unique solution in other contexts.

A partir de pesquisa sobre a descoberta, a invenção e a inovação relacionadas à penicilina, por amostra de atividades de resolução de problemas tecnológicos rastreada pela distribuição, no período de 1929 a 1945, de trabalhos científicos, relatórios de governo, inovações e patentes, o artigo propõe uma reflexão sobre a importância do progresso científico para a segurança nacional. A análise destaca a trajetória tecnológica e os resultados na área de propriedade intelectual, considerando um fator importante a política implementada nos EUA para catalisar processos de inovação e oferecer condições institucionais para atender às demandas de defesa nacional, o que não significa necessariamente unicidade de solução em outros contextos.

Premios Nobel Chain y Schatz evalúan la producción de penicilina en Chile en los años sesenta / Nobel Prize winners Chain and Schwartz evaluate the production of penicillin in Chile in the sixties

En los años sesenta el antiguo Instituto Bacteriológico de Chile obtuvo de la Universidad de Chile la ayuda de Albert Schatz, descubridor de la estreptomicina, para mejorar su producción de penicilina. Esta asesoría no fue aprovechada y la situación empeoró, hasta la llegada de Mario Miranda como Director, quien trajo a Sir Ernst Chain, Premio Nobel por el desarrollo de la penicilina, para que hiciese una evaluación de la planta de producción antes de decidir su cierre. El autor de estas líneas, quien puso fin a la producción en 1973, relata las visitas y las conclusiones de ambos asesores.

In the sixties the ancient Bacteriological Institute of Chile obtained from the University of Chile the transfer of Albert Schatz, discoverer of streptomycin, to improve its penicillin production. This advisory was wasted and the situation worsened until the arrival of Mario Miranda as the new Director, who brought Sir Ernst Chain, Nobel Prize for the development of penicillin, to make an evaluation of the production plant before deciding to continue or close it. The author of these lines, who ended production in 1973, recounts the visits and the conclusions of both advisors.

[The penicillin support of medical institutions in the USSR during second half of 1940s].

The article, on the basis of declassified archival documents, considers the issue of centralized state distribution of penicillin in the USSR in the second half of 1940s. The mechanism of determining the need in medication using special coefficient is presented. It is demonstrated that in conditions of acute shortage, this approach became an attempt to ensure physical accessibility of medication for patient. However, by the end of 1940s, when acute shortage was overcome, free state supplies created preconditions for mismanagement and misuse at national and local levels, that affected timing and volume of supplies of antibiotic to medical institutions, as well as quality of medication supplied to patient. The district hospitals of provincial towns occurred in the worst condition. The article presents the facts testifying that penicillin supply solved not only health problems, but also domestic and foreign policy problems of the post-war USSR.

[An allied miracle cure; how liberators introduced penicillin in the Netherlands]. / Een geallieerd wondermiddel.

The introduction of penicillin to medical practice in the Netherlands is closely related to the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi occupation. The allied forces brought penicillin - of which they had vast quantities - to the Netherlands and introduced it to Dutch doctors. In many of the oldest documented cases involving the use of penicillin in the Netherlands, allied army doctors gave the ampoules of penicillin to Dutch doctors, who used the until then unknown medicine as a last-resort drug to treat patients with severe infections that had failed to respond to other treatments. The archives of the Dutch Journal of Medicine (NTvG) contain numerous interesting examples of case reports. A public call on the website of the Dutch public news broadcaster NOS resulted in several other apt examples. It is, however, not known exactly who the first Dutch patient to receive penicillin was.

[The problem of initial stage of mass production of penicillin in the USSR].

The article analyzes the problems of initial stage of mass production of penicillin in the USSR on the basis of documents of the State archive of the Russian Federation. The analysis covered declassified documents of the funds of the Narkomzdrav of the USSR, the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the A. M. Gorky All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine (VIEM). The secret correspondence of the People's Commissar of Health Care with the Government, with the Head of the Department of Biochemistry of Microbes and experimental production laboratory of VIEM Z. V. Ermolieva, with Directors of plants for organization of production of penicillin is analyzed. The transcripts of meetings and orders of the People's Commissar of Health Care are considered. It is demonstrated that development of production facilities and provision of health care with antibiotics was an extremely difficult task. Its solution was complicated by many factors such as the inaccessibility of advanced methods of deep fermentation, general technological backwardness, organizational problems associated with specificity of management and public decision-making. It is established that during 1944 the main producer of penicillin was the laboratory of VIEM and serial production of penicillin at the Karpov enterprise and plant of endocrine drugs in Moscow began only in late 1944, and amount production was were extremily not enough. In this situation, in early 1945, G. A. Miterev, the People's Commissar of Health Care, raised the question of buying plants for the production of penicillin in the United States. However, the final decision was not taken by the government. The attempt to devote part of the resources of the Central Military Sanitary Department of the Red Army for ensuring public health with antibiotic failed. In 1945, enterprises of the People's Commissariat of Meat and Dairy Industry were involved in the production of penicillin. At all enterprises of the USSR in the end of 1945, production of antibiotic was carried out by surface fermentation and liquid penicillin was produced, except for the A. Mikoyan Moscow meat-packing plant, where the production of drug in dry form was established. The outdated technologies and limited scale of production determined lower productivity of enterprises, which did not allow to cover the needs of health care even approximately.

The British Army's contribution to tropical medicine.

Infectious disease has burdened European armies since the Crusades. Beginning in the 18th century, therefore, the British Army has instituted novel methods for the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of tropical diseases. Many of the diseases that are humanity's biggest killers were characterised by medical officers and the acceptance of germ theory heralded a golden era of discovery and development. Luminaries of tropical medicine including Bruce, Wright, Leishman and Ross firmly established the British Army's expertise in this area. These innovations led to the prevention of many deaths of both military personnel and civilians. British Army doctors were instrumental in establishing many of the teaching facilities that we now consider to be global leaders in tropical medicine. The impact of the Army in this field has certainly been significant in the past and its contribution continues to this day.

Hans Enoch and vivicillin.

Hans Emmanuel Enoch (1896-1991) was born in Hamburg, the son of a manufacturer of sera and vaccines. Upon his father's death, he took charge of the Hamburg Serum Werke. Following the rise of Hitler, he came to be pilloried in the Nazi press for allegedly having poisoned the population of Hamburg and was imprisoned for a time. He immigrated to England in 1935 where he had secured a position with the International Serum Company in Norwich. Following the outbreak of war, he was interned as an enemy alien, eventually ending up in Canada. In 1941, he was permitted to return to England, but wartime conditions prevented him from continuing to manufacture sera. At about this time, penicillin was making the headlines, and coupled with accounts of its miraculous properties, was the news that all production was reserved exclusively for the armed forces. Enoch decided to meet the public clamour for penicillin by producing a crude version which he termed 'vivicillin.' News of this spread globally, and he came to incur the disdain of Howard Florey for the attendant publicity. Notwithstanding this, vivicillin was to prove itself effective and its use led to the saving of lives.

A brief history of antibiotics and select advances in their synthesis.

The advent of modern antibiotics contributed enormously to the dramatic extension of human lifespan since their discovery by virtue of their lethal and selective action against pathogenic microbes. And yet despite our powerful arsenal of weapons against these pathogens, the war against them has not been won. And it may never be. Drug resistance is still menacing the society with many lives being lost due to deadly infections caused by continuously evolving strains spread beyond our means to eradicate them or prevent their spreading. Herein, the emergence and evolution of antibiotics is briefly reviewed, and a select number of total syntheses of naturally occurring antibiotics from the authors' laboratories are highlighted. The article concludes with a strong endorsement of the current efforts to intensify our fight against these dangerous pathogens with the hope that, this time, these initiatives will be sufficiently focused and serious enough so as to achieve our set goals of, at least, being prepared and ahead of them as part of our drive to improve humanity's healthcare and wellbeing.

Regulation, circulation and distribution of penicillin in Portugal (1944-1954).

Portugal did not participate in World War II but was one of the first countries in the world to receive penicillin for civilian use. The Portuguese Red Cross began to import the antibiotic from the United States of America in 1944 and appointed a controlling committee to oversee its distribution, due to the small amount available. In 1945, as world production increased, penicillin began to be distributed through the normal channels. An important role in its regulation was played by the official department responsible for controlling pharmaceutical and chemical products in Portugal, the Comissão Reguladora dos Produtos Químicos e Farmacêuticos (Regulatory Committee for Chemical and Pharmaceutical Products). Penicillin was imported as a raw material from 1947 and the first medicaments containing penicillin, prepared in Portugal, were released into the commercial circuit in 1948. A laboratory had been established in 1942 by the Comissão Reguladora for the analytical verification of medicaments and medicinal products with the aim of certifying their quality and minimizing the number of products with no attested therapeutic efficacy. The number of medicaments analysed by this laboratory increased substantially from 72 in the year of its foundation (1942) to 2478 in 1954, including, after 1948, medicaments containing penicillin. The aim of the present paper was to elucidate the role of the Comissão Reguladora dos Produtos Químicos e Farmacêuticos in regulating and controlling the distribution of penicillin in Portugal during the 1940s and 1950s.

Miracle near 34th street: Wartime Penicillin Research at St John's University, NY.

In the spring of 1944 Sister Marie Immaculate was awarded a Master of Science degree for research on penicillin which she had conducted at St John's University in Brooklyn, New York. She gave her motivation for undertaking research in this topic as wishing to fulfil her patriotic duty by participating in the quest towards making penicillin more readily available to all who needed it. It is possible that contemporary media reports suggesting that the power of penicillin was comparable to a miracle cure contributed to her interest in the subject at the time. In practical terms, her work was to have no bearing in increasing the availability of penicillin, but simply by becoming engaged in this endeavour, it could be argued that she was enacting the beliefs underlying her religious calling. This article explores those beliefs, and proposes an ideological synergy between science and religion in respect to Sister Marie Immaculate's faith in penicillin's potential to cure the world's ills.

A re-appraisal of the conventional history of antibiosis and Penicillin.

The popular perception of the history of antibiosis and penicillin is that Alexander Fleming was the sole researcher on penicillin. The literature, however, has documentation of preceding persons who reported definitively on these topics, from the late 19th century. Divergent reports on "firsts" in the discovery of antimicrobial activity of Penicillium and on the use of penicillin as a therapeutic agent, are present. This review adds knowledge from diverse sources, and restores historical priorities to the conventional story of Penicillin.