Penicillin was first noted in 1896 by Ernest Duchesne. Thirty-two years later Alexander Fleming also noticed it, while working at St. Mary's Hospital, located in London. He observed that when bacteria were contaminated by Penicillium fungi, the bacteria closest to the mold began to die. In 1929 he named the substance Penicillin and published his observations made during his investigations. He thought that perhaps his investigations could be useful if they produced the mold in large quantities. Fleming gave up on the idea after 1931, but began doing further experiments in 1934. In 1939, Dr. Howard Florey began extensive research on penicillin. Since the war with Germany had exhausted their resources, they turned to the United States for help. In 1943 they experimented with penicillin and it proved to be the most effective antibacterial agent to date. Before penicillin, there were no sufficient treatments for infections such as pneumonia, Lyme disease, typhoid fever, gangrene, chlamydia, or leptospirosis. At the beginning of World War II they didn't have penicillin. Therefore, if someone falls and bacteria from the dirt gets into the wound and infects it, they will likely die because they cannot cure the infection. Previously, there were some antibiotics that could help against diseases but could not eliminate them completely. People had shorter lifespans before the discovery of penicillin. For a time, bacterial infections were the leading cause of death in mankind. People died of syphilis, gonorrhea, diphtheria, scarlet fever and even childbirth because they didn't have a sufficiently effective antibiotic. You could also die from surgical infections, so you could already be sick and very sick…half of paper…to help because they didn't have enough resources to test enough studies. Penicillin production really took off and achieved great success. Penicillin still has the same effect as twenty or thirty years ago. It works very effectively and helps people every single day. I believe that one day penicillin will be in one of those situations where every infection is resistant to it because people are abusing the antibiotic for other things that don't necessarily need antibiotics. Furthermore, more and more superbugs and pan-resistant infections are being produced, and none of them will be able to use penicillin or antibiotics. Overall penicillin is an amazing drug and it has become very prosperous and hopefully it will last a long time but if not there are always new discoveries to be made and making the medical world even better than before.