Antibiotics and Survival of the Fittest

Abstract

“Flexner’s serum” had a significant and dramatic impact on the uniformly poor prognosis associated with meningococcal meningitis in the early decades of the twentieth century, reducing the overall mortality by more than 50 % and providing the first real glimmer of therapeutic hope in the century-long history of this disease. Similarly, serum therapy for pneumococcal disease—the most lethal of the common bacterial diseases of the time—showed substantial early promise during the 1920s and 1930s. It seemed at that juncture as if this would be the path towards managing some of the most dangerous bacterial infections of the era. However, an abrupt shift—a paradigm shift—was about to take place in medical science, one that would lead to a transformational change in the way in which infectious diseases were treated. In the late 1930s, this revolution would not only alter the prognosis of patients suffering from these maladies but would also alter the history of medical science—at least temporarily.