Health: The Ultimate Treasure
Antibiotics
Learn what antibiotics are, and when a doctor gives them.
Sometimes the immune system can't stop an infection and we fall ill. A doctor may then give antibiotics: medicines that kill bacteria that may have caused the disease.
They have a strict limit: antibiotics work only against bacteria. They attack parts of a bacterial cell that our own cells, and other animals' cells, don't have. That's why they can harm the bacteria without harming us.
So antibiotics do nothing against viruses or protozoa:
| Illness | Caused by | Will an antibiotic help? |
|---|---|---|
| common cold, flu | virus | no |
| malaria | protozoa | no |
| typhoid, TB, cholera | bacteria | yes, if a doctor prescribes it |
The first antibiotic was found by accident. In 1928 Alexander Fleming, a bacteriologist in London, was studying harmful bacteria. On a petri dish he had thrown aside, he noticed that a mould had grown, and around the mould the bacteria had stopped growing.
He realised the mould was giving off a substance that killed bacteria. That chance find led to penicillin, the first antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections.
Antibiotics have saved millions of lives since. But, as the next lesson shows, using them carelessly has a serious cost.
Practise this lesson
Questions that get harder as you improve, a Tutor that helps without giving the answer away, and progress you can see. Free for every learner.
No account, no email address. Opens the real product.