ABSTRACT
The introduction of antiseptics, chemotherapy, antibiotics and antiviral agents led to an unbelievable reduction in mortality and morbidity. During the First World War Alexander Fleming served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and worked with Almroth Wright and his team at a laboratory at Boulogne, where Fleming conducted experiments on antiseptics in the treatment of war wounds. Penicillin was the first of the modern antibiotics to be discovered and derived its name from the molds of the genus Penicillium. Newman Dorland described the Penicillium as a genus of the molds which develop fruiting organs resembling a broom, or the bones of the hand and fingers. Although chemotherapy is currendy associated with cancer treatment, the term also related to combined therapy for pulmonary tuberculosis and the use of agents to limit or destroy the multiplication of many disease causing the bacteria.
