For over two thousand years,
Bloodletting was used as a medical therapy for over 3,000 years. It originated in Egypt in 1000 B.C. and was used until the middle of the 20th century. Medical texts from antiquity all the way up until 1940s recommend bloodletting for a wide variety of conditions, but particularly for infections.
Arsenicals and sulphonamides, drugs made by chemical tinkering with synthetic dyes, as well as a number of disinfectants made with metal ions toxic to bacteria, such as mercury or copper, were in use well before the introduction of penicillin.
Before the discovery of antibiotics, there was nothing much anybody could do. Streptococcus pyogenes caused half of all post-birth deaths and was a major cause of death from burns. Staphylococcus aureus was fatal in 80 percent of infected wounds and the tuberculosis and pneumonia bacteria were famous killers.
Prior to the beginning of the 20th Century, infectious diseases accounted for high morbidity and mortality worldwide. The average life expectancy at birth was 47 years (46 and 48 years for men and women respectively) even in the industrialized world.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, mercury, arsenic and sulphur were commonly used to treat venereal disease, which often resulted in serious side effects and many people died of mercury poisoning.
Before we had antibiotics, infections like scarlet fever could even lead to heart problems. Surgery often led to deadly infections in the blood like bacteremia or septicemia. Tuberculosis is the classic example of what happened before antibiotics.
Antibiotics are only needed for treating certain infections caused by bacteria, but even some bacterial infections get better without antibiotics. We rely on antibiotics to treat serious, life-threatening conditions such as pneumonia and sepsis, the body's extreme response to an infection.
Traces of antibiotics were found in human skeletons from ancient times dating back to 350 – 550 CE.
Treatments over the centuries have also included bloodletting, as well as drugs derived from herbs with emetic, purgative, diaphoretic, or narcotic properties.
One hundred years ago, before antibiotics, there was no effective treatment for either gonorrhea or syphilis. Treatment for gonorrhea was largely symptomatic, and for syphilis was use of toxic metals, such as arsenic. The armies of The First World War dealt with venereal disease in quite different ways.
Antimicrobial resistance is accelerated when the presence of antibiotics and antifungals pressure bacteria and fungi to adapt. Antibiotics and antifungals kill some germs that cause infections, but they also kill helpful germs that protect our body from infection. The antimicrobial-resistant germs survive and multiply.
Prehistoric humans probably had their first medicinal experiences through eating earth and clays. They may have copied animals, observing how some clays had healing qualities, when animals ingested them. Similarly, some clays are useful for treating wounds.
Penicillin G is a natural penicillin that is produced directly from fermentation of Penicillium crysogenum. Penicillin V is a derivative of penicillin G and because of similarities in spectrum of activity, is considered a natural penicillin.
Antibiotics cause side effects, some of which can cause serious problems. These are some common side effects of antibiotics, and why they are bad: Severe diarrhea can cause dehydration. Dizziness can cause falls or accidents when operating machinery.
The human body has tremendous self-healing capacity and regeneration after injuries and pathogen invasions. These factors are particularly important in older adults which take longer to heal and recover physically.
Some were concerned that antibiotics upset the body's balance in some way, and many used a range of strategies to try to prevent and treat infections without antibiotics. They tended to believe that it was better to strengthen the body to resist infection than to treat it.
In just over 100 years antibiotics have drastically changed modern medicine and extended the average human lifespan by 23 years. The discovery of penicillin in 1928 started the golden age of natural product antibiotic discovery that peaked in the mid-1950s.
Official answer. Antibiotics work by interfering with the bacterial cell wall to prevent growth and replication of the bacteria. Human cells do not have cell walls, but many types of bacteria do, and so antibiotics can target bacteria without harming human cells.
The most common STI among animals today is Brucellosis or undulant fever present in domestic livestock, dogs, cats, deer and rats. It is also transferable to humans by drinking contaminated milk or direct contact with the infected animals and can be very dangerous to humans, one reason why milk is pasteurised.