Have you ever gone to get a piece of bread and found it covered with blue mold? That bread might actually be covered in medicine! When we get sick, it’s because our body has been invaded by tiny living things called microbes. Most of these are harmless, but some can make you very sick. Viruses
Have you ever gone to get a piece of bread and found it covered with blue mold? That bread might actually be covered in medicine!
When we get sick, it’s because our body has been invaded by tiny living things called microbes. Most of these are harmless, but some can make you very sick. Viruses make you sick by hiding inside your cells and multiplying until your cells explode. Bacteria are another kind of microbe that make you sick by producing poisons.
Fortunately, a scientist working in a laboratory in 1928 accidentally left a window open next to the bacteria he was studying, and discovered in the morning that mold that got in through the window had started growing in his bacteria – and was killing it!
This mold was producing penicilin – a chemical that makes bacteria explode when they try to multiply! Once the scientists figured out exactly which chemical worked against the bacteria, the first antibiotics were born!
But you can’t get much penicillin from a piece of moldy bread. During World War II, soldiers could die from tiny wounds if they got infected by bacteria. Fortunately, two scientists figured out how to grow and make enough penicillin to treat everyone who needed it. They even won a Nobel Prize for their work!
Since then, penicillin has saved countless lives. So does that mean you can eat moldy bread when you’re sick and it will make you better? Absolutely not! Moldy bread can grow dozens of different kinds of mould, and only one kind makes penicillin. Others make poisons that can make you even sicker!
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