Miracle drugs

What are miracle drugs? Miracle drugs are drugs that come along when they are most needed. Some diseases such as polio, hard to treat infections, tuberculosis, and yes, even heart attacks have often been stopped in their tracks by a new drug. Were they actually miracles? Yes and no. They came about because scientists were on their case from day one trying this, trying that, and failing nine times out of ten. Yet that tenth try proved a winner.

*Jonas Salk developed the first vaccine in 1952. I remember it well. I was a nursing student and knew about the futility of polio treatments which consisted of hot packs mainly and symptomatic treatments. One injection of an inactivated virus knocked the virus out cold. Or more accurately, stopped it from entering.

A few years later, Albert Sabine developed an oral virus that was given on a sugar cube. This miracle happened and I watched polio disappear. Of course fifty years later it has murmured a few times and has made attempts to reappear. Whatever, it is rare today.

* The first actual miracle drug was the discovery of penicillin. And just think, it came about incidentally. The drug was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1929, at St. Mary's Hospital in London, England. He found a petri dish covered with mold that had eradicated the other germs in the dish.

He published his facts, yet he never actually created the drug. Further work was done at Oxford by Howard Florey, Ernst Chain and Norman Heatley in 1938. They grew the mold, purified it and created penicillin in time for the soldiers of World War II. In 1941, due to the war, the U.S. took over the research. It was produced to help cure the soldiers. The rest of the antibiotic story is history and it is an oft repeated one.