Medicine: No. 3?

Like scientists everywhere, Britain's were looking for a new antibiotic. They hoped for something good enough to put on the same shelf with penicillin and streptomycin.

Last week, after ten years and 1,000 experiments, stocky Scotsman George Brownlee, 37, thought he had something. His research team at Wellcome Physiological Laboratory, Beckenham, Kent, had produced a new antibiotic from bacteria (Bacillus aerosporus) found in soil from a market garden. The antibiotic is called aerosporin (pronounced a-ross-poe-rin). The researchers' tests and findings were reported with cautious excitement in Lancet.

In test tubes, aerosporin proved many times more effective than streptomycin, weight for weight, against...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!