Fun post-apocalyptic question. How hard would it be to make usuable amounts of penicillin “from scratch”? Let’s try it 2 ways:
No advance planning, using only materials looted from retail stores, houses, etc.
Some advance planning, using shelf-stable stockpiled materials bought from lab suppliers, etc.
Assuming you could do it, how effective would the stuff be, considering the existence of resistant bacteria? Could you make any other medicines/antibiotics?
We just had a thread with a scenario about a time-traveling doctor in the middle ages, and one of the discussion topics was whether the doctor could figure out how to make penicillin. My position can be summed up as “maybe, with a ridiculous amount of support and a few decades of effort”.
Your scenario is a lot easier with a decent bit of preparation. With preparation you should be able to set up your own home microbiology lab and make a crude type of penicillin just by following the instructions in the original papers on penicillin’s discovery. (Unfortunately I can’t actually pull these papers without gasp going to an actual library). Without preparation you still might be able to loot yourself all the supplies you need, again as long as you have instructions to follow.
Inventing it from the mere knowledge that some sort of fungus makes something that kills bacteria? That sounds closer to the medieval scenario, and would pretty much require a lot of resources and the ability to do full-time research for years or decades. So I’d say it’s impossible unless the local mutant warlord feels like patronizing you.
…and if you’re a time traveler, you’re likely to have the attitude that “If anybody’s going to be patronizing around here, I think it should be the guy who watched his fellow man walk on the MOON.”
Eh, just use garlic.
Rob
Now my curiosity is piqued… but not quite enough that I want to hike over to the stacks. Does anyone have a copy of this paper?
“Penicillin as a chemotherapeutic agent”, The Lancet, Volume 236, Issue 6104, 24 August 1940, Pages 226-228
I think this is the paper that describes how to make a batch of penicillin juice, and demonstrates the bacteria-killin’ properties.
You would need a growth medium on which to grow samples. Making that is quite easy to do. Mix cow’s blood into a gelatin (boiled horse or cow hooves, e.g.) and allow it to cool and you have a good general growth media.
Sterilize several small containers by boiling. Add a bit of the cooling growth media mixture and allow to cool and harden. Plate multiple samples from sources likely to be chock full of bacteria and leave the samples open to the air. Keep the samples in a warm location.
Repeat as needed until you find a sample with a few clear spots… areas where something (a bit of airborne fungus, perhaps) has killed the bacteria. Take samples from these clear dots and plate out. You got something that was making an antibiotic.
From there is is just a matter of increasing production to a useful level - not an easy task but something that can be done with fermentation equipment and basic knowledge.
You’d certainly need the resources to be able to work unhindered, but I think it could probably be done with only a basic understanding of what’s necessary.
Let’s see if I can lash up a plan - this is without consulting anything but my own memory.
Prepare some clean(ish) working conditions.
Procure some growth medium - agar gel is the norm, but I’m betting filtered and resterilised stock made from animal bones would do.
If no petri dishes are available, jam jars (cleaned and sterilised by boiling)
Something to keep the cultures at a temperature somewhere around blood heat - a fridge (not functioning), a thermometer and a hot brick.
Now, some samples of pathogens - swab some nostrils and inoculate some clean cultures - wait to see what grows - expect to see colonies of bacteria - pick out some samples and isolate them on new clean gels. Streptococcus aureus is yellow - that’s what aureus means.
Moulds should not be hard to find. Sample and isolate some of these from rotting fruit, etc.
Set up permutations of cultures where a strain of bacteria is introduced on one side of the gel, a strain of mould on the other. Wait and see who wins.
Assuming a mould culture is eventually found that inhibits growth of bacteria, that one needs to be bulked up in volume - inoculate a large number of clean gels, wait.
Extracting the active ingredient is an unknown process to me - but I would try:
Pulverising with sterilised water, then filtering and boiling to re-sterilise
As above, with alcohol
Test the product on bacterial cultuires (could be a problem for the alcohol solution), then animals, then humans.
The best Penicillin that saved men in WWII was found on a rotten cantalope. Also penicillin is what makes cheese. Just places to look for your mold, or rather funguy.
Wow, it actually appears to be doable. Thanks guys, you’ve just given me the base knowledge for a wasteland career that doesn’t involve manual labor or shooting people/zombies/mutants. Time to find a warlord with some extra space in the fortress.
Turns out it “just” describes the therapeutic effects. You actually want:
“Further observations on penicillin”, The Lancet, Volume 238, Issue 6155, 16 August 1941, Pages 177-189
It goes into pretty fantastic detail - preferred medium, pH, temperature, depth of medium - down to a diagram for constructing an “Earthenware culture vessel.”
Oddly, the bad fantasy trope of moldy bread on a wound doesn’t work very well. Penicillin is not generally found on bread, mostly fruit. And, Penicillin is not very effective topically.