1928 | Medicine
Medicine
The Basis of Sensation by English physiologists Edgar Douglas Adrian, 39, and Charles Scott Sherrington, 67, presents work that will enable physicians to understand disorders of the nervous system. Adrian has worked out the mechanism by which nerves carry messages to and from the brain.
Eli Lilly introduces Liver Extract No. 43 to treat pernicious anemia (see 1924; Cohn, 1926; Castle, 1929).
Nobel pathologist Johannes Fibiger dies of a massive heart attack at Copenhagen January 30 at age 60 soon after learning that he has colon cancer. Further research will raise doubts about his prize-winning work on gastric cancer but his diphtheria serum has saved countless lives and his work on cancer has given impetus to other research on that disease. Neurologist Sir David Ferrier dies at London March 19 at age 85; Rockefeller Institute bacteriologist Hideyo Noguchi of yellow fever at Accra in British West Africa May 21 at age 51.
Penicillin proves to have antibacterial properties that will launch an "antibiotic" revolution in medicine. Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming at St. Mary's Hospital, London, has earlier found a weak antibiotic called lysozyme, he has been looking for a stronger one, and he notices September 3 that no bacteria have grown in the vicinity of some Penicillium notatum fungus that has accidentally fallen into a preparation of staphylococcus bacteria on Petri dishes he was about to sterilize for reuse. He finds a substance in the mold spores that prevents growth of the bacteria even when diluted 800 times, he renames his "mold juice" penicillin, but the antibacterial power of the fungus lasts only a few hours (see 1929; bacteriophages, 1917). Now 47, Fleming discovered "the dissolving enzyme" in 1922, he realizes the significance of his finding, but he lacks the chemical wherewithal to isolate and identify the active compound involved and cannot obtain enough of it to use on humans (see 1929).