Exploring Technology in a Wizard World
Chapter 356 - Chapter 356 Chapter 355 Sulfonamide Bacitracin and Stone

Chapter 356: Chapter 355: Sulfonamide, Bacitracin, and Stone Chapter 356: Chapter 355: Sulfonamide, Bacitracin, and Stone “In the current Wizard World similar to the Medieval era, trying to treat pneumonia with penicillin is very difficult,” Richard thought. “Moreover, penicillin can only kill some bacteria and has almost no effect on fungi, so it’s best to discard this idea.”

So, if not penicillin, what else?

The answer to this question is–sulfonamide.

Penicillin was the first antimicrobial drug discovered in the world and it is the most widely used antimicrobial drug on modern Earth, but it was not the first antimicrobial drug to be used on a large scale.

In the 1930s–Penicillin was discovered, but while its production was still being increased, sulfonamide drugs had already been used clinically to effectively treat infections caused by Hemolytic Streptococcus.

Over the next decade, sulfonamide drugs developed rapidly, and by the 1940s, hundreds of different sulfonamide drugs had been manufactured.

In the early years of World War II (1939-1945), sulfonamide drugs were common medicines used by the military to treat infections. The US Army’s first aid kits included sulfonamide powder and sulfonamide pills; sprinkling sulfonamide powder on wounds could inhibit infections, and taking sulfonamide pills orally could address gangrene and pneumonia.

Hmm, pneumonia.

Sulfonamide drugs saved many lives during the war, including notables such as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s son, as well as Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, who had pneumonia.

Thus, however one looks at it, in the unreliability of penicillin, sulfonamide is indeed the real lifesaver.

But to say all problems are solved would be premature.

On closer reflection, sulfonamide isn’t just something that can be synthesized easily, otherwise such an important substance wouldn’t have waited until just before World War II to be used as a clinical medicine.

The reason for this is that sulfonamide is a chemically synthesized drug, a derivative of para-aminobenzenesulfonamide. That is to say, to manufacture it requires a certain level of chemical industry.

This level had to reach that of Earth in the 1900s, because this was when the first para-aminobenzenesulfonamide derivative was chemically synthesized.

And the original synthesis wasn’t even as a treatment drug, as people hadn’t yet realized the miraculous effects of this substance and simply used it as… a dye.

Yes, a dye.

The synthesized product had brilliant colors that hardly faded; it was superior to all previous dyes and was widely used in the dyeing industry.

It is worth mentioning that this dye was red.

Hmm, red.

So how did this red dye, over the course of decades, finally become a medicine?

This mainly depended on the extremely imaginative German scientist–Hade Domark.

In the autumn of 1932, Domark was working for Farben Company, hoping to find a drug that could specifically kill pathogenic bacteria. After considering it, he decided to start with bacterial staining agents.

Domark’s logic went as follows: Staining agents cause bacteria to change color, indicating that something specific inside the bacteria’s structure had changed. If they could find a staining agent that only caused specific bacteria to change color and damage their internal structure, while not affecting other cells, wouldn’t that be a perfect specific antimicrobial drug?

After relentless effort, Domark discovered a red azo dye–bacitracin–among thousands of candidate azo dyes.

Research showed that bacitracin was highly effective in treating infections caused by Hemolytic Streptococcus.

Thanks to bacitracin, Domark saved his daughter, who at the time suffered from streptococcal sepsis, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1939.

Bacitracin works as a prodrug; it is inactive outside the body, but once inside, it degrades to release a para-aminobenzenesulfonamide derivative–sulfonamide. Sulfonamide is very similar to para-aminobenzoic acid, which bacteria need for growth; this similarity misleads the bacteria to absorb it, but it is ineffective, ultimately causing them to die.

Honestly speaking, the greatest function of bacitracin is to inhibit bacteria, rather than kill them, a point on which it differs from penicillin.

Moreover, bacitracin has an unavoidable drawback–it can cause discoloration of the body after use, because, after all, it is a dye.

But no matter how it’s put, it indeed is a lifesaving medicine.

So how do we obtain it?

Obtaining it typically involved placing para-aminobenzoic sulfonamide in an alkaline solution and using potassium ferrocyanide or potassium permanganate to oxidize the amine as raw materials for synthesis. It could also be synthesized by reducing the coupled para-nitrobenzene sulfonamide with zinc powder.

In summary, it was quite troublesome.

It wasn’t impossible, but due to the lack of a corresponding level of chemical industry to that of the early 20th century on modern Earth, many raw materials needed to be otherwise produced. And the raw materials for producing those raw materials required yet other nonexistent materials.

Thus, it necessitated raw materials of raw materials’ raw materials.

What was devastating was that these third-tier raw materials often didn’t exist in nature either and still required production — in the absence of a complete industrial system, one often had to face the challenge of wanting to synthetically bridge epochs. Apart from opportunism and innovation, it was necessary to build up nearly half of the lacking industrial system.

However, Richard did not have to experience this kind of inner collapse.

Because he had bacitracin.

Yes, he possessed bacitracin!

The red dye, with high medicinal value, wasn’t it just the thing in the box Alex had sent over!

Initially, he had recognized the value of the dye and accepted it. Now, it was time to use it.

Thinking this, Richard, supporting his tired and weak body, walked toward the wooden shelf nearby.

…

Outside the laboratory, in the courtyard.

Pandora stood, frowning tightly, not understanding why Richard had sent her out. Had she done something wrong?

It shouldn’t be, she had been very obedient lately and had even volunteered to wash the test tubes. Maybe during the washing process, she had broken a few… dozens of… well, a few hundred, but it wasn’t all her fault.

Those test tubes were so slippery, particularly tough to hold, especially when wet, and one careless move could cause them to drop to the ground. She was trying not to smash them, which is why she gripped them so tightly, unintentionally crushing them–it was completely understandable.

Or perhaps…

Pandora remembered the pale look on Richard’s face.

“Tap tap tap…”

Pandora quickly ran to the window, leaned on the windowsill, tiptoed powerfully, and peered into the laboratory.

Through the murky glass, she saw Richard frowning intensely, drinking a weirdly quirky liquid, then stubbornly forcing himself to do some tasks, which looked very strenuous.

She should go and help.

Thinking this, Pandora suddenly saw Richard inside the laboratory approaching the windowsill, covering his mouth and nose, and tapping on the irregularly fitted glass pane, he said to her, “Be good, stay here in the courtyard, don’t think about coming inside. And don’t worry about me, I’m fine.”

“Uh–” Pandora said, letting go of the windowsill and walking back to the middle of the courtyard. She pouted and walked around somewhat sullenly. A twenty-centimeter long stone, thoughtlessly laying in her path, Pandora kicked it aside, and it rolled clattering away.

Suddenly Pandora turned her head, looking at the stone she had kicked, her eyes flickered, then she looked back at the laboratory as if she had thought of something.

She quickly ran to the stone she had kicked away, picked it up, then grabbed another stone in her hand, and began trying to hit them together.

“Bang bang bang…”

Pandora tapped very carefully, much more so than when she was washing the test tubes, the twenty-centimeter long stone gradually chipped away.

Pandora stopped after a moment of tapping, tilted her head in thought for half a day, then continued pounding.

Amidst the intermittent sounds, the long stone that Pandora held slowly took shape–a human figure.

Inside the laboratory, after taking bacitracin, Richard was undergoing the rest of the auxiliary treatments.

The sky was dark, the night still ongoing…