Themes in American History

The period between 1880-1920 is known in the history of the US as the Progressive Era. It was a time when urban society was open for changes. During the 1920s, urbanization took place on a wider front than ever before. Manufacturing, industrialization and commercialization boosted the population of many cities creating more jobs for the working class. Increases in population size and high production output by manufacturing methods, such as the assembly line, has led to pollution confounding the issues of sanitation and health. As a result, the urban population was faced with numerous types of infections and fatal diseases that threatened their health and safety. The majority of people were forced to live in crowded tenement apartments, sometimes with a few families sharing a room. When one member of the family became severely ill, the risk of it spreading was exponentially greater and easier due to the confined living space. Therefore, the importance of penicillin in the development of modern cities became crucial.
Invented in Europe in 1928 by Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming then refined in Oxford University by Howard Walter Floreyand, penicillin was quickly produced around in the U.K. However, it was taken up by the U.S and by using an American innovation, the assembly line, it was produced in enough quantities that made it available and affordable to most Americans. Its ability to kill infectious bacteria has been a break through in medicine. This was most readily seen by the drop in infant and child mortality rates. Where common infections and illnesses were viewed with fatal fear, the advent of penicillin gave the American people and the world a new weapon in the war against illness. For that reason it was called as the “miracle drug” and would prove to be the discovery that changed the way we view and understand modern medicine and science.

Early penicillin culture facility at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, Oxford, England.
© Museum of the History of Science, Oxford

Photograph courtesy of Associated Press
Sir Alexander Fleming, 1952

Tags: "miracle drug", Alexander Fleming, break through in medicine, penicillin, Progressive Era, Walter Floreyand

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