The Antibiotics from a Botanical Viewpoint' 



By Kenneth L. Jones 



Professor, Department of Botany, University of Michigan 



Botanists have participated energetically in antibiotic research 

 primarily because certain lower plants, familiarly molds, are the sole 

 source of most of the antibiotics used in medicine and agriculture. 

 The discoveiy and elucidation of the structure and growth require- 

 ments of these valuable plants have been a lively area of botanical 

 study. There are ancillary considerations which have given antibiotic 

 research a botanical flavor, such as the realization that the causal 

 organisms of disease may be members of the plant kingdom, notably 

 the fungi. 



The term "antibiotic" was first suggested by Professor Selman 

 A. Waksman, of Rutgers University, New Jersey, an eminent re- 

 searcher of lower plants — the actinomycetes. The word "antibiosis" 

 had been used at least as long ago as 1889 by P. Vuillemin to describe 

 absolute antagonism of one organism to another and it subsequently 

 came to denote the converse of "symbiosis." Waksman, however, 

 gave the word "antibiotic" a special meaning in order to set off 

 microbial antagonists from other antibacterial substances. His full 

 definition, enunciated in 1947, was : 



An antibiotic is a chemical substance, produced by micro-organisms, whichi 

 has the capacity to inhibit the growth of and even destroy bacteria and other 

 micro-organisms. The action of an antibiotic against micro-organisms is selec- 

 tive in nature, some organisms being affected and others not at all or only to 

 a limited degree; each antibiotic is thus characterized by a specific anti- 

 microbial spectrum. The selective action of an antibiotic is also manifested 

 against microbial versus host cells. Antibiotics vary greatly in their physical 

 and chemical properties and in their toxicity to animals. Because of these 

 characteristics, some antibiotics have remarkable chemotherapeutic potentialities 

 and can be used for the control of various microbial infections in man and 

 in animals. 



When Professor Waksman formulated the antibiotic concept in 1947, 

 three of the five antibiotics destined to revolutionize medicine had 

 already been discovered : penicillin, streptomycin, and Chloromycetin. 



iKeprinted by permission from Michigan Quarterly Review, vol. 1, No. 3, Summer 1962. 



369 



