Circulation of antibiotics: an introduction

Abstract

The history of twentieth-century medical drugs is a research subject to which many contributions are currently being made from history of science, medicine and from history of industry 1. The historiography of antibiotics has in good part underlined the role of penicillin as the pioneer miracle since its creation in the 1940s. Penicillin became the emblematic wonder-drug of the post-WWII years and its discovery, production and distribution have been celebrated for half a century as a compelling and relevant historical subject. It also seems to indicate a shift in the history of pharmaceutical industries, in that this history was presumably dominated by Germany until World War II, when the United States took over. The U.S. also stood out among the nations whose use and production of penicillin has been comprehensively studied 2.