when were antibiotics invented

1 day ago 9
Nature

Antibiotics were first discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming, who identified penicillin as the first true antibiotic. Fleming noticed that a mold called Penicillium notatum was capable of killing bacteria, which led to the development of penicillin as a treatment for bacterial infections. However, it took over a decade after Fleming's discovery before penicillin was purified, mass-produced, and widely used as a treatment, starting around 1945. This introduction of penicillin marked the beginning of the "golden era" of antibiotics, spanning roughly from the early 1940s to the mid-1960s, during which many other antibiotic classes were discovered and developed.