Abstract
Initial reporting of penicillin as a wonder drug emphasised the fact that it was derived from a fungus, and a common one at that. Fungi of the genus Penicillia are ubiquitous in the soil and rotting matter across the world. They are most commonly seen in the bluish mould growing on old fruits and bread, and there are specific species associated with types of cheese: P. camemberti and P. roqueforti. Indeed, the species that Alexander Fleming derived his pioneering antibacterial from agent was the common P. chrysogenum (formerly P. notatum), that was common enough in London to blow in through the window of his laboratory.1 The main antibiotics that followed penicillin were also derived from fungi: streptomycin from Streptomyces griseus, tetracycline from Strepto-myces rimosus, cephalosporin from Cephalosporium acremonium and, as discussed in the previous chapter, griseofulvin from Pénicillium griseoful-vum. These discoveries changed the profile of fungi in popular culture, from agents of contamination and decay to those of medical progress and human improvement, and there was renewed recognition of their role in food and drink production.2 Antibiotics affected fungal infections in medicine in two main ways: first, they prompted a search for antifungal as well as antibacterial agents and second, antibiotics seemed to open the body to new types of invasive fungal infection, the most serious of which was with Candida albicans (C. albicans), which was well known as the cause of thrush or yeast infections.3 Thrush was commonly seen as an oral infection, especially in babies, and a genital infection in adults, particularly women.
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Homei, A., Worboys, M. (2013). Candida: A Disease of Antibiotics. In: Fungal Disease in Britain and the United States 1850–2000. Science, Technology and Medicine in Modern History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137377029_4
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