I am so old that there were no antibiotics to fight bacterial infections in general use before I was born. Penicillin was the first antibiotic to be ‘invented’- as far as I know, anyway. It was actually invented a couple of years before I was born but was studied and refined for several years before it was in general use around the world.

Things I know about Penicillin:

Penicillin was first based on a natural fungus.

There are different types of antibiotics based on penicillin.

Penicillin cures bacterial infections but has no effect on viruses.

People who have been treated with penicillin quite often, sometimes find it has lost its ability to kill the germs that are making them ill. When this happens, penicillin can cause allergic reactions.

Luckily, scientists have developed other antibiotics that can be used instead of penicillin when it has stopped working on someone.

Some bacteria have evolved and are not affected by most antibiotics.

I have had an ‘allergic’ reaction to penicillin. (My lips swelled up!)

I have recently read that an allergic reaction to penicillin doesn’t mean I am allergic. Instead, it is an intolerance.

Penicillin is said to have saved over 80 million lives.

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I am thankful that antibiotics were developed and that Alexander Fleming first noticed the effect of the mould on bacteria and began to study it. I’m grateful that other scientists used his findings to carry on the study which led to the antibiotics that we have been using since those early days of my life.

I don’t know if any of the illnesses I had during my life were so bad that I wouldn’t have got over them without using antibiotics – it’s possible that my immune system would have been strong enough that my body would fight off those infections. Without antibiotics, any infections I had would have lasted longer and put a strain on my body. Even in my 80s my vital organs seem to be relatively healthy, though I have had to slow down the past few years.

My great grandmother (the Great Weller), my grandmother, Ethel, and my mother Patty, all lived until their early 90’s, though not without some health problems. The Great Weller had diabetes; Ethel had very early hearing loss and was somewhat addicted to alcohol and Phenobarbital (which was in the form of a green liquid, bottles of which she had in her bathroom cabinet); and Patty smoked and drank alcohol until she went to live in a nursing home at 90. All of them were alive at some point when there were no antibiotics and all survived until their tenth decade.