(Gr. anti, "against"; bios, "life") An antibiotic is a chemical substance produced by one organism that is destructive to another. The word antibiotic came from the word antibiosis a term coined in 1889 by Louis Pasteur's pupil Paul Vuillemin which means a process by which life could be used to destroy life.
Late 1800s
The search for antibiotics began in the late 1800s, with the growing acceptance of the
germ theory of disease, a theory which linked bacteria and other microbes to the causation of a variety of ailments. As a result, scientists began to devote time to searching for drugs that would kill these disease-causing bacteria.
While discovered earlier, it was awhile before penicillin was manufactured and sold as a drug.
Lloyd Conover patented the antibiotic tetracycline in 1955, which became the most prescribed broad spectrum antibiotic in the United States.
This drug patented in 1957 was used to cure many disfiguring and disabling fungal infections.
1981 Amoxicillin
SmithKline Beecham patented Amoxicillin or amoxicillin/clavulanate potassium tablets, and first sold the antibiotic in 1998 under the tradenames of Amoxicillin, Amoxil, and Trimox. Amoxicillin is a semisynthetic antibiotic.
