Innovators, deep fermentation and antibiotics: promoting applied science before and after the Second World War

Abstract

The historiography of penicillin has tended to overlook the importance of developing and disseminating know-how in fermentation technology. A focus on this directs attention to work before the war of a network in the US and Europe concerned with the production of organic acids, particularly gluconic and citric acids. At the heart of this network was the German-Czech Konrad Bernhauer. Other members of the network were a group of chemists at the US Department of Agriculture who first recognized the production possibilities of penicillin. The Pfizer Corporation, which had recruited a leading Department of Agriculture scientist at the end of the First World War, was also an important centre of development as well as of production. However, in wartime Bernhauer was an active member of the SS and his work was not commemorated after his death in 1975. After the war new processes of fermentation were disseminated by penicillin pioneers such as Jackson Foster and Ernst Chain. Because of its commercial context his work was not well known. The conclusion of this paper is that the commercial context, on the one hand, and the Nazi associations of Bernhauer, on the other, have submerged the significance of know-how development in the history of penicillin.

The Changing Pattern of Published Articles in the Field of Otology: 1818 to Today

“…The first had to do with evaluation and treatment of infection. Following World War II, the bio-science changed dramatically [ 8 ]. The use of penicillin altered the treatment of infectious diseases [ 9 ].…”

Wars and sweets: microbes, medicines and other moderns in and beyond the(ir) antibiotic era

“…But as you reflect on who, how and what you put your faith in, these moments might also sometimes(pace) leave you with room-no matter how small-for improvisation, experimentation and variation with the lines you speak, choreographies you follow, ways you act, roles you take on, fellow cast you acknowledge, sets and stages you perform on. For instance, how has it transpired that, despite intensified bacterial resistance movements, repeated viral invasions and decades of critical and damning reviews of our modern medical scripts (Latour 1988;Walker 2020;Servitje 2021;Irwin 2020;Sontag 2001), performances and casts (Bud 2007b;Venkat 2021;Podolsky 2014;Kirchhelle 2020;Chandler, Hutchinson, and Hutchison 2016;Koch 2013), many of us still cry for our theatres of war to continue inextricably onward? Perhaps if we re-enact our modern medical play, we might be gifted with some insights as to how the 'great' performances of our science, war, economics and (geo)politics over the last 150+ years are also central to the triumphs and devastations of the(ir) antibiotic era.…”

“…Such was the magnitude of injury and mortality suffered by our troops, that we even filtered their urine to ensure every ounce of our precious antigerm weapons were sent to do battle. Antibiotic shots saved our troops lives, so they could continue to fight our enemies on the(ir) frontlines (Bud 2007b)-all the while producing (anti)bacterial evidence of the possibility of our aseptic dreams. A dream mirrored in our nightmares of our atom bombs nu-clear(ly) insured extinction and Nazis' aseptic nationalism.…”

“…Antibiotics conscripted to fight in our GMWs were not limited to combating existent invaders. Rather they were also mobilised in pre-emptive (prophylactic) strategies to combat risks of future bacterial invasions postsurgery (Vats, Nagpal, and Moorthy 2009;Bud 2007b). We were not, however, the only sites upon which we deployed them to war.…”

“…Some of us even dreamt of antibiotics' potential to promote growth and alleviate suffering among those of us under and malnourished (Podolsky 2017). So lethal and efficient were our antibiotics in rendering germs a mere technical matter, no longer worthy of our fear and moral judgement (Bud 2007b), that we heralded them as 'wonder drugs' and 'magic bullets' (Amyes 2003).…”