Antibiotics
Antibiotics are chemical substances that are used for treatment of diseases and illnesses that are caused by bacteria and rarely also of those caused by fungi or protozoa but antibiotics are not appropriate for viral infections. Antibiotics are either obtained from or produced by living microorganisms and block the growth (bacteriostatic) or destroy other microorganisms (bacteriocidal). There are several thousands known antibiotic substances, while several hundred new ones are discovered each year although medicine uses only about 1% of all known antibiotics which are classified in different ways: by microbial origin, by chemical structure and frequently by effective range into broad-spectrum antibiotics which affect wider range of bacteria and narrow-spectrum antibiotics which target particular types of bacteria.
Louis Pasteur discovered the capability of some microorganisms to destroy or block other organism already in the second half of the 19th century but the decisive step forward was made with the discovery of penicillin from the fungus Penicillium notatum in 1928 by Alexander Fleming what is widely regarded as the beginning of modern antibiotics. One decade later, in 1938, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain discovered penicilin's therapeutic properties and its chemical compound what was crucial for the production of penicillin for medical purposes. One year later Rene Dubos isolated the substance tyrothricin from the soil bacterial species Bacillus brevis which became one of the first antibiotics manufactured commercially. In 1943 Selman Waksman discovered streptomycin from the actinobacterium Streptomyces griseus which was the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis.
After the 1940's the introduction of antibiotics caused a revolution in treatment of numerous infectious diseases. Many of once widespread and often fatal diseases practically disappeared although excessive antibiotic use is today causing serious problem in the developed countries. According to some researches antibiotics are prescribed when they should not be in about 20-40% patients, while additional problem represents inappropriate use by the patients who often (up to 50%) stop taking antibiotics as soon as they are feeling better. Thus virtually all bacteria became resistant to certain antibiotics and for that reason many antibiotics are not as effective as they used to be. Still, they are essential in many treatment sessions and our online pharmacy no prescription has a good chose of them.