Talk:Penicillin

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[edit] Edit of Apr 2004

Fit in the text how it was finally used for the first time to treat disease. Delta G 13:01, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Sickle Cell Disease

Penicillin is used as a preventiv agent in Sickle Cell Disease i.e. to prevent bacterial infection that comes along with the more infection-susceptible state in Sickle Cell Disease. Penicillin is not a chemotherpeutic agent AGAINST Sickle Cell Disease, which might be dedcuted from the first line in this wikipedia-entry.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.24.115.21 (talk • contribs) 10:27, 26 January 2005

[edit] Clinical Treatment Info

This article could benefit from including penicillin treatment guidelines...what specific diseases (above and beyond just the microbiology), strengths, frequencies, routes of administration, duration of therapy, etc. FDA-approved indications (for US only) would also be useful. Thoughts? --Piewalker 16:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First successful use

There is a fuller description of discoveries at Alexander Fleming. The 2 people mentioned here can not both have been first, anyway. Perhaps a subpage?DanielDemaret 08:56, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I could only find one source—that was not a copy of the existing Wikipedia entry—that claimed successful use of penicillin by Fleming (and it lists a different year, 1932 vs. 1933). Fleming’s Nobel Prize bio does not mention any such use, and according to the paper Post Penicillin Antibiotics Fleming and Rogers did not work together until 1935.
The source sited in the Fleming article, only uses the phrase “probably the first” to describe his treatment with penicillin, and does not give a year. All of this suggests that the 1930s claim was either seen as apocryphal or inconclusive by the medical community, whereas the 1942-03-14 case was widely sited, and led the way for successful use of penicillin in WWII. —MJBurrage • TALK • 05:31, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Autoimune Effects

In the Esperanto version of this article, there is a paragraph about autoimune effects of penicillin. Is this real or should the paragraph be removed? --F3meyer 16:18, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split suggestion

A sugegstion (you mean suggestion) to split the specific drugs penicillin from the details & history of the group of antiobtics (you mean antibiotics)(the Penicillins):

  • Just as tetracycline is one member of the tetracycline antibiotics group and each have their own articles, should Benzylpenicillin and Phenoxymethylpenicillin have their own articles ?
  • This article covering history, development, resistance, members of the group & manufacture is already long.
  • Here in UK, Phenoxymethylpenicillin is not even the most widely used penicillin (Amoxicillin is). More and less commonly used members of the group have their own articles.

David Ruben Talk 14:21, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree, it would be good to split off some separate pages for benzylpenicillin, phenoxymethylpenicillin, procaine benzylpenicillin and benzathine benzylpencillin. -Techelf 11:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ha ha, not funny

Who is the bonehead who decided to rewrite this page as "how are you i love you"? I'm doing a research project and can't afford this kind of silliness.-Ben 10 9:01, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

    ->With respect, if you're doing a reasearch project, you should be doing original research, and not using wikipedia.
Vandalism is quite common but useless as it is easy to revert (history tab). however it is advisable that you just ignore them. do not insult them, engage them, follow them or IP trace them. --Squidonius (talk) 17:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hypersensitivity

Are allergies to penicillin and related drugs hereditary?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.89.32.163 (talk • contribs) 08:09, 21 November 2006

The tendancy to develop allergies is hereditary, but not the allergies themselves. In order to become allergic to something, you have to be exposed to it at least once. --ssd 16:51, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] re: Hypersensitivity and re: separate articles for the 4 forms of PCN

A tendency to allergies may be hereditary. Allergies to particular medications are not hereditary.

Phenoxymethyl-, benzyl-, procaine benzyl- and benzathine benzylpenicillin are all considered plain old "penicillin" among doctors. Separation among different pages could discount the practical conflation. They have no difference in the actual antibacterial activity of the antibiotic, only on the rates of absorption, excretion or presence of an analgesic. Furthermore, unlike tetracycline among the tetracycline group of antibiotics, if each of the four is separated to its own page, the penicillin page will describe no clinically useful penicillin. Penicillins with structures altered in order to alter their spectrum of activity (which bacteria they kill) include the aminopenicillins (amp- and amox-), anti-staphylococcal penicillins (meth-,naf-,ox-,clox-,diclox-, et al), and anti-pseudomonal penicillins (piper-, ticar-, et al). These all seem worthy of separate pages (which they have). Dyslexic3 04:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Creating penicilin

We should add a section to this article how to create penicilin on your own. Who knows... maybe someday someone is stuck somewhere in need of penicilin and only has the wikipedia CD on hand and a PC--Energman 22:15, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

If one is on the verge of death and all he has is Wikipedia, then that would certainly be nice, but such a thing isn't really suitable encyclopedic material. I suggest that you make a new wikibook about it and then link to it from this article. 85.147.58.212 18:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I would but I don't have a clue except for the fact that you need blue-green molds. Anybody???--Energman 11:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I have been trying for years to confirm a procedure for making raw penicillin. I was told to let moist bread mold. Coat a knife in the blue green mold and use the knife to break the skin of an orange. Introduce the spores into the orange. The crystal tears that the orange weeps would be raw penicillin. Anyone else?

[edit] Not funny

So I'm reading over penicillin and I come across this little tidbit:

The discovery of penicillin is usually attributed to Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming in 1928, but it was really Stephen Colbert in the late 1970's, he then utilized time travel technology to take his discovery back and save the world from a disease ridden future.

Whoever keeps doing stuff like this should really stop. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.169.217.22 (talk) 00:31, 31 January 2007 (UTC).

HagermanBot, I *removed* (or at least I attempted to remove) the nonsense about Stephen Colbert. Apparently I wasn't signed-in to wikipedia at the time. *I* did not vandalize the page. I tried to fix. Before you accuse someone of vandalism, please make sure you're accusing the correct person.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaneatx (talk • contribs)

[edit] Penicillin production today

Something that's not clear from the article: does penicillin production still require cultivation of the mold? Or is synthesised through a purely chemical process? –Adrian J. Hunter 18:04, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Permapen

I'm trying to figure out the word permapen and it links here, but the page makes no other mention of it besides the redirect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.254.224.209 (talk • contribs) 07:38, 26 March 2007

It seems Wikipedia doesn't say anything about permapen, but try here. –Adrian J. Hunter 14:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adverse Drug Effects

The article notes that ≥1% of patients (greater than or equal to 1%) have adverse side effects. It seems more likely that it should be ≤ (less than or equal to). Can someone confirm either way? If it is in fact ≥, then some upper bound should be noted instead; right now the range is 1-100% as opposed to 0-1% that it likely should be. -Trevor Bekolay 16:20, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

yeah i don't know much about penicillen but i remember hearing a story about in flemming's lab when flemming was producing it his dog somehow contaminted a tennis ball (could have been something else not for certain) with penecillen and it spread all over the place? is this true? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.209.147.181 (talk) 15:52, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Badly organized lists

Why is there both a heading for Narrow Spectrum B-lactamase resistant antibiotics, and one for Narrow Spectrum Penicillinase resistant antibiotics, when the difference between the two lists lies whether they affect G+ or G- bacteria? I'd fix them but I don't have time right now-but people who don't know any better would be totally confused by the way the lists are structured.

[edit] Discovery of penicillin

The first published reference to the bacteriostatic effect of Penicillium appears to be by John Tyndall (Phil. Trans., 1876, 166, pp27-74.) It is referred to at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoveries_of_anti-bacterial_effects_of_penicillium_moulds_before_Fleming RayJohnstone (talk) 09:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)