Showing posts with label american journal of public health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label american journal of public health. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Penicillium mold upends our notions of Science and Progress says 1952 medical editorial



Is there a stranger chapter than this in the
whole history of scientific progress?
Ten years ago, "mold" was a faintly repulsive fungoid growth which sometimes caused the spoilage of food products.
The very word "moldy” implies something “musty,
fusty, and stale.”
Today, the blue mold is recognized
as a synthetic chemist of the first order— a
friend and benefactor of the human race.
    — Editorial , American Journal of Public Health, March, 1952.

I just discovered this editorial in an old copy of a county medical society journal but it said then what I have always thought about the wartime penicillin drama....