Health & biology · 1943

Streptomycin

A soil microbe yielded the first drug effective against tuberculosis.

Albert Schatz isolated streptomycin in Selman Waksman's lab in 1943. Combined with later drugs it made TB curable, and systematic soil screening found most antibiotic classes in the following two decades.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Penicillin 1928

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Life expectancy in the UK since 1543 Latest: 81.3 years (2023) Source: Our World in Data

Life expectancy at birth Latest: 73.2 years (2023) Source: Our World in Data