Early Penicillin Sample Comes to Collection
Curators are always excited when they make a “find”, especially when that find more or less just arrives at our doorstep: an ampoule containing some of the first experimental penicillin produced in Canada!
What makes our penicillin sample particularly rare is that the isolation of the antibiotic’s active ingredient in England appears to have taken place only a short while before this ampoule was produced. Founded in 1925, Ayerst, McKenna and Harrison was a young Canadian pharmaceutical firm – in 1931 it set up the first commercial biological laboratory in the country. Penicillin was still an experimental drug and clearly its use on a teenager in 1940 was a gamble, but fortunately one with a happy outcome, given how unauthorised was its administration.During the Second World War pharmaceutical companies in several countries rushed to produce penicillin for soldiers – the antibiotic’s ability to greatly reduce mortality rates resulting from infected wounds, unclean surgery, and infectious diseases was a clear advantage on the battlefield. The war galvanised the mass production of many drugs and penicillin became available on a wide scale to the general public between 1944 and 1946. This 20th –century “magic bullet” has long been an effective weapon against pneumonia, anthrax, tetanus, syphilis, and diphtheria. The little penicillin ampoule buried in a university exhibit showcase – what has turned out to be an important treasure highlighting a significant development in Canadian healthcare history.Paul RobertsonCurator