Beating Staphylococcus and Streptococcus On this date in 1932, German chemist and pathologist Gerhard Domagk discovered the antibiotic effects of prontosil, for which he was awarded the 1939 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. He first tried prontosil, a red-dye derivative of sulphanilamide on mice and rabbits, and found that it protected them against lethal doses of the staphylococci and streptococci bacteria, which respectively cause staph infections and strep throat, among other ailments. Domagk was unsure whether prontosil worked as well in humans but, when his young daughter became seriously sick with a streptococcal infection, he gave her a dose. She recovered completely. The forerunner of sulfa drugs, prontosil was at first very effective at treating bacterial infections such as urinary tract and fungal infections, leprosy and ulcerative colitis. Domagk's work gave rise to an eventual new group of drugs to fight many infectious diseases.
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