Home > History Fact Finder > Medicine and Disease - Why Are New Antibiotics Constantly Being Developed?

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page

Why are new antibiotics constantly being developed?

New antibiotics (substances that kill bacteria, that is, germs) are constantly being developed for good reason: After being used for decades (and misused or overused), some antibiotics are no longer effective against certain microbes (germs). In order to sustain the effectiveness of antibiotics, doctors should prescribe them only when they are necessary, not when patients demand them to treat viral infections (since antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses). It is also important that a person taking antibiotics complete the entire dosage, even if he or she already feels better, because any bacteria not yet killed by the antibiotic may survive to withstand the antibiotic later as a drug-resistant bacteria. Scientists also believe that by feeding antibiotics to animals that are used for food, we may be creating antibiotic-resistant bacteria. By the 1990s,...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Origins
   1. How did early humans cure illness and disease?
   2. Who was the first doctor in history?
   3. What is the Hippocratic Oath?
   4. What are the four humors?
   5. When did biological warfare originate?
   6. Were there hospitals before the Middle Ages?
   7. When was the first North American hospital built?
   8. What advances were made in medicine during the Renaissance?
   9. How old is the concept of public health?
   10. What is Gray's Anatomy?
2. Modern Medicine
   1. When did modern medicine begin?
   2. Who invented vaccination?
   3. When did modern surgery begin?
   4. When was anesthesia first used?
   5. What surgical advances were introduced in the late twentieth century?
   6. Who introduced the use of antiseptics in hospitals?
   7. What are Louis Pasteur's contributions to the study of disease?
   8. When were antibiotics invented?
   9. Why are new antibiotics constantly being developed?
   10. Why is Florence Nightingale famous?
   11. When was the International Red Cross founded?
   12. Who discovered the X ray?
   13. Who was Clara Barton?
   14. What were the Curies' contributions to medicine?
   15. How did Jonas Salk and Albert B. Sabin save lives?
   16. When did the first heart transplant take place?
   17. When was the first test-tube baby born?
   18. When was the first kidney transplant?
   19. What is leprosy?
   20. What is the plague?
   21. Is yellow fever still a deadly disease?
   22. What was the first disease conquered by humans?
   23. Do scientists know when the AIDS virus first appeared?
   24. Who was Typhoid Mary?
   25. Has the flu ever reached epidemic proportions?
   26. What are CT and MRI scans?
3. Psychology
   1. Why are Pavlov's dogs famous?
   2. What is behaviorism?
   3. What were Sigmund Freud's contributions to the study of human psychology?
   4. What does the term "Jungian" mean?
   5. Who was Dorothea Dix
   6. What is depression?

1. Middle Ages