Most Important Discovery Development of the Last Century

¶ … Discovery / Development of the Last Century There have been a number of important scientific and technological developments in the last century that have profoundly affected the lives of people all over the world. The 20th century saw the invention of the airplane and mass production of automobiles that signaled a revolution in transportation; delivery of mass-produced electricity into our homes that transformed the way people live; and the invention of transistor and personal computer that triggered the information revolution.

While all these developments have contributed significantly in raising the living standards of billions, there was one other discovery of the last century that did much more: it literally saved the lives of billions of people. That discovery was the development of the miracle drug called penicillin. In this essay I shall discuss when and how penicillin was discovered and why I consider it to be the greatest discovery of the last century.

It may be hard to believe, but before the discovery of the penicillin and the widespread availability of the first antibiotic known to humans, something as innocuous as hurting oneself on a nail could lead to death. As recently as the World War I (1914-1918) more battlefield deaths occurred due to infection than from the direct gunshot trauma. Mankind seemed to be helpless against diseases such as cholera, pneumonia, meningitis, scarlet fever, gonorrhea, tuberculosis, and dozens of other infectious diseases that regularly killed millions of people all over the world.

Then, in 1928, a Scottish researcher -- Alexander Fleming -- discovered the existence of a mold that could fight bacteria almost by accident. Fleming was researching the development of agents against bacterial infections, when he went on vacation, leaving his culture plates unwashed. When he came back a few weeks later, he noticed that a "mold" had grown on one of the culture plates preventing the growth of bacteria around it. Fleming named the substance "Penicillin" but found it to be unstable and was unable to purify it.

Ten years later, the reports written by Fleming on penicillin aroused the interest of two other brilliant chemists Ernest Chain and Howard Florey working at Oxford, England. By May 1940, Chain and Florey had managed to develop enough penicillin to successfully test it on mice. Unable to get the financial backing in England for further development of the drug, Chain and Florey went to the U.S.A. And got the support to start large-scale production of the miracle drug.

By the end of World War II, enough penicillin was available for the Allied soldiers to prevent the appalling number of deaths caused by infectious diseases during the First World War. Soon, penicillin and other antibiotics that were developed in its wake became available commercially and were instrumental in man's fight against several deadly diseases. Let us see why penicillin, rather than some other invention, deserves the 'honor' of being crowned the greatest discovery of the last century.

Among other strong contenders are the automobile, the airplane, the wireless, electricity, the transistor and the personal computer. The automobile and electricity are technically disqualified as they were invented in the previous centuries. Out of the rest, the airplane and personal computer were the result of development of existing technologies rather than breakthrough ideas. For example, the steam engine (discovered in the 18th century), had already made rapid propulsion possible by burning fuel.

Development of the airplane and the automobile were the inevitable next step in refinement of an existing technology. Similarly, development of the computer was based on.