If the only earthly job for native penicillin, ancient beyond time, was to succour the humble and to comfort the weak and afflicted, it could have crossed the human consciousness at any time throughout human history.
But if native - natural - humbly made - penicillin's main purpose here was really to smite the arrogant, its arrival in 1940, at the very height of a war to the finish between the world's most 'modern', most 'progressive' civilizations, it couldn't have come at a more appropriate time.
For it's defeat of modern synthetic penicillin confounded the whole notion of 'biological evolutionary progress' so decisively that the Era of Progress came to an abrupt end in 1945 ---- and our current post-Modern, post-Progress era began .
That Dr Henry Dawson fully intended to use penicillin to succour the humble and save the lives of young people dying from SBE endocarditis caused by Rheumatic Fever there can be no doubt.
Still one can ask, why then did he jump the gun in that effort, and start the process three months early (on October 16th 1940) with clearly inadequate amounts of very crude 'native' penicillin, if saving lives was his only aim ?
Could it just be that his history-making injections to two '4Fs of the 4Fs', on a day otherwise devoted to honouring the worth of America's 1As and dismissing the worth of her 4Fs, was designed as much to smite the arrogant, as it was to succour the humble ?
Showing posts with label native penicillin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label native penicillin. Show all posts
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Friday, June 19, 2015
Native penicillin versus Modern penicillin in the run up to Indian Independence
The mere thought of putting native penicillin (basically mold slime excrement) into the human bloodstream just to save a life was anathema to most European and North American doctors in the years between 1928 and 1943.
They preferred to wait, wait until (or if) modern synthetic European-made penicillin was available.
And any European or American doctor that dared to inject native penicillin into white veins, was seen as letting down the side ------ going native.
Losing face.
They couldn't be publicly seen as de facto admitting that the smartest, whitest, most European chemists in the universe can't do what the simple little fungus tossed off so nonchalantly - make this new miracle life saver, penicillin.
Not in front of the women, or the darkies, or the dock labourers.
Won't do, old boy, just won't do.
You'd be blackballed down at the Club.
So native penicillin was not allowed to be made in 1944 era India, from its abundant agricultural waste and very cheap hand labour.
Perhaps that is why today native penicillin is mostly made by the darkies, in places like newly independent India - and then sold at a good profit to the white European and American chemists, all who make none of their own.
Native revenge is sweet - or if not sweet, at least a slightly off-white, slightly bitter, naturally-grown powder....
They preferred to wait, wait until (or if) modern synthetic European-made penicillin was available.
Too bad about your mother, though.
And any European or American doctor that dared to inject native penicillin into white veins, was seen as letting down the side ------ going native.
Losing face.
They couldn't be publicly seen as de facto admitting that the smartest, whitest, most European chemists in the universe can't do what the simple little fungus tossed off so nonchalantly - make this new miracle life saver, penicillin.
Not in front of the women, or the darkies, or the dock labourers.
Won't do, old boy, just won't do.
You'd be blackballed down at the Club.
So native penicillin was not allowed to be made in 1944 era India, from its abundant agricultural waste and very cheap hand labour.
Perhaps that is why today native penicillin is mostly made by the darkies, in places like newly independent India - and then sold at a good profit to the white European and American chemists, all who make none of their own.
Native revenge is sweet - or if not sweet, at least a slightly off-white, slightly bitter, naturally-grown powder....
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Never ever a shortage of wartime Penicillin : only a shortage of customers
Never ever were the basic details or making or using penicillin a secret during WWII - anywhere in the world - they had been published repeatedly in globally widely available medical journals and presented before international medical conferences.
Nor was there ever a shortage of therapeutic grade penicillin - again world wide.
The only thing that was in desperately short supply for penicillin in the fifteen years from September 1928 to September 1943 was customers.
No, not a shortage of patients dying for lack of the infection fighting antibiotic - they were always there in their millions - annually - worldwide.
But between them and a normal lifespan was a po-faced gatekeeper resisting penicillin with all their professional inertia : their GP.
Seemingly, it is easy for historians to demonstrate that there wasn't much therapeutical penicillin in most 1928-1943 drug company warehouses or hospital pharmacies : ipso facto , a shortage of penicillin was holding back its use.
But drug company executives and hospital chief pharmacists aren't running charities ; they will not produce or bring in a drug for which there is almost no call for.
Maybe eighty doctors , worldwide between 1940 and 1942, pushing hard to use therapeutic penicillin is hardly a market demand worth gearing up for .
Not when the pool for a drug like penicillin's rival sulfa was two billion potential patients and eighty thousand GPs eager to use it and able to pay good profitable prices for it.
Yet in the end all those doctors ended up using penicillin and most abandoned sulfa : so what changed ?
Well , in a world where effectively even in dictatorships one can choose one doctor over another , after 1943 patients all over the world wanted penicillin and made it clear they'd abandon one doctor for another to get it.
Once the miracles of penicillin , like the sins of Bill Cosby , were common knowledge and not just controlled knowledge, not just an 'open secret' among doctors and scientists, patients demanded it - even if it was not white man-made but 'merely' dark and native.
For GPs were not hostile to all forms of penicillin - if it had been synthesized in 1928 it would have been quickly used everywhere.
But injecting in the pristine human body what was essentially the excrement of a foul-smelling slimy basement mold , like some backwoods old biddy practising her folk medicine ?
Simply not on.
Saving patients was all very worthy no doubt , but not at the cost of a loss of professional dignity and status.
Once the carefully planned pictures of refinery-like "deep tank" penicillin factories and of grave middle class men in white coats carefully tending to wall of dials were out there in the general and scientific media , GP acceptance of even native (natural) penicillin soared.
No longer , it seemed , were uneducated rural teenage girls producing native penicillin by hand in flasks in some hastily converted milk dairy.
The product itself was no longer dark and strong smelling like some sort of Polish rye bread , but through an elaborate and expensive purifying process it was now almost as white as Wonder Bread.
It didn't save lives any better - but it sure looked better.
And that was what was really important , wasn't it ...
Nor was there ever a shortage of therapeutic grade penicillin - again world wide.
The only thing that was in desperately short supply for penicillin in the fifteen years from September 1928 to September 1943 was customers.
No, not a shortage of patients dying for lack of the infection fighting antibiotic - they were always there in their millions - annually - worldwide.
But between them and a normal lifespan was a po-faced gatekeeper resisting penicillin with all their professional inertia : their GP.
Seemingly, it is easy for historians to demonstrate that there wasn't much therapeutical penicillin in most 1928-1943 drug company warehouses or hospital pharmacies : ipso facto , a shortage of penicillin was holding back its use.
But drug company executives and hospital chief pharmacists aren't running charities ; they will not produce or bring in a drug for which there is almost no call for.
Maybe eighty doctors , worldwide between 1940 and 1942, pushing hard to use therapeutic penicillin is hardly a market demand worth gearing up for .
Not when the pool for a drug like penicillin's rival sulfa was two billion potential patients and eighty thousand GPs eager to use it and able to pay good profitable prices for it.
Yet in the end all those doctors ended up using penicillin and most abandoned sulfa : so what changed ?
Well , in a world where effectively even in dictatorships one can choose one doctor over another , after 1943 patients all over the world wanted penicillin and made it clear they'd abandon one doctor for another to get it.
The sins of Bill Cosby
Once the miracles of penicillin , like the sins of Bill Cosby , were common knowledge and not just controlled knowledge, not just an 'open secret' among doctors and scientists, patients demanded it - even if it was not white man-made but 'merely' dark and native.
For GPs were not hostile to all forms of penicillin - if it had been synthesized in 1928 it would have been quickly used everywhere.
But injecting in the pristine human body what was essentially the excrement of a foul-smelling slimy basement mold , like some backwoods old biddy practising her folk medicine ?
Simply not on.
Saving patients was all very worthy no doubt , but not at the cost of a loss of professional dignity and status.
Once the carefully planned pictures of refinery-like "deep tank" penicillin factories and of grave middle class men in white coats carefully tending to wall of dials were out there in the general and scientific media , GP acceptance of even native (natural) penicillin soared.
No longer , it seemed , were uneducated rural teenage girls producing native penicillin by hand in flasks in some hastily converted milk dairy.
The product itself was no longer dark and strong smelling like some sort of Polish rye bread , but through an elaborate and expensive purifying process it was now almost as white as Wonder Bread.
It didn't save lives any better - but it sure looked better.
And that was what was really important , wasn't it ...
Monday, November 24, 2014
NATIVE penicillin was dark and swarthy , greasy-looking, smelt of garlic , carried a stiletto and was unreliable and unpredictable
Well it often was a dark dirty reddish brown and so often did look like dry mustard that had absorbed water from the atmosphere and had darkened and moistened at the bottom of the jar.
And indeed it did reek - but less of garlic and more of a musty basement or newly turned humus-rich soil.
By contrast, white (man-made) penicillin (as yet unseen and in fact never yet seen) was widely/wildly predicted by mainstream scientists to be as pure as a Boy Scout and as predictable, reliable, dependable as clockwork.
Who ever said that scientists don't have a rich fantasy life ... or a privileged access to bad acid ?
And indeed it did reek - but less of garlic and more of a musty basement or newly turned humus-rich soil.
By contrast, white (man-made) penicillin (as yet unseen and in fact never yet seen) was widely/wildly predicted by mainstream scientists to be as pure as a Boy Scout and as predictable, reliable, dependable as clockwork.
Who ever said that scientists don't have a rich fantasy life ... or a privileged access to bad acid ?
dark, dirty, wet , NATIVE penicillin not welcome ... to help win WWII
Because WWII was to be a war for white (man-made) penicillin : pure, dry and crystal clear.
Native penicillin (which incidentally turned out to be the only penicillin produced during WWII and ever since when synthetic penicillin failed to emerge) was about as popular as the black and east Indian native was in the armies of the British Commonwealth , France and America : which is to say not at all.
Instead the war was to be won by bombers (commanded exclusively by white officers) killing enemy grandmothers and babies until the German, Italian and Japanese males in uniform surrendered without ever seeing armed combat against the western allies....
Native penicillin (which incidentally turned out to be the only penicillin produced during WWII and ever since when synthetic penicillin failed to emerge) was about as popular as the black and east Indian native was in the armies of the British Commonwealth , France and America : which is to say not at all.
Instead the war was to be won by bombers (commanded exclusively by white officers) killing enemy grandmothers and babies until the German, Italian and Japanese males in uniform surrendered without ever seeing armed combat against the western allies....
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