Since the early 1900’s, we have been using a drug called Penicillin to treat bacterial infections in the human body, but something a lot of people don’t know is that it was discovered quite by accident by a Scottish scientist named Sir Alexander Fleming in the year 1928.
In his laboratory in St. Mary’s Hospital in London, he discovered that the mold Penicillium notatum had found its way into a culture dish of Staphylococcus and was inhibiting its growth. He thought initially that it could be a good disinfectant and noted that it was highly effective, but was minimally toxic. The importance of his discovery was not really known at the time and the use of penicillin did not really begin until the 1940’s. Howard Florey and three of his colleagues at Oxford University started to research further into penicillin. The ability that it had to kill infectious bacteria was particularly interesting, but since the country was in the middle of World War II, it was unable to gather the funds necessary to produce mass amounts of the penicillin required for clinical trials and looked to the United States for assistance.
A search worldwide began for the perfect strain of penicillin mold that would produce the largest amount of the mold when it was grown in a vat containing corn steep liquor and strangely, it was not found abroad, but right at home in Peoria in a market next to the lab assisting Oxford with the production of the mold.
By almost the end of 1941, Andrew J. Moyer, a mold nutrition expert, succeeded in multiplying the penicillin production by 10 times and by the year 1943, the clinical trials needed to approve the penicillin doses for public use. These doses were extremely expensive in the year 1940, but as time went on, they became much less costly, being around $20 a dose in July of 1943, and around fifty cents per dose in 1946.
About four years after penicillin had begun being produced on a large scale in 1943, bacteria and other microbes started resisting it. Staphylococcus aureus was one of the first to effectively battle penicillin and while it is a normal, mostly harmless inhabitant of the human body, it can cause pneumonia or TSS (toxic shock syndrome, associated with the use of tampons) when it begins to multiply in large numbers. It then begins to produce a toxin and this is what makes the person ill.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
South Carolina Water Damage Restoration and and other states such as
Chicago Water Damage Restoration companies across the united states.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Water Damage and Preventing It From the Outside
When talking about preventing water damage, one of the most important places to start is outside the home. Making sure rain and flood waters run away from your home instead of settling around the foundation is essential to prevent the weakening of it. Water will not only cause structural damage, but it will loosen the soil in the ground around the house and cause it to sink over time.
If you live in an extreme climate such as on that receives an exceptional amount of rainfall or snowfall every year, you need to take some extra measures to prevent water damage to your home, since it’s likely to occur in these areas more than in some others. The more rain a home is subject to receiving upon it every year, the more likely it will seep inside and cause water damage to your home’s structural integrity. Make sure soil at the base of the home is piled upward so that water drains away from the foundation and into another area of the yard; if you can, have it drain into the ditch that usually runs beside most homes just next to the road.
Sometimes your gutters can be overloaded by water if the rainfall is harder than normal, so the gutters attached to the outside of your home need to be as large as necessary to handle a large amount of water. They should remain clear of debris such as leaves, sticks, and anything else that can stop them up. Being sure these are cleaned thoroughly might be a pain, but when you think about the money that’s spent on water damaged homes every year, you’re actually saving yourself a lot of trouble.
Be sure the downspouts that are connected to your gutters are free and clear of debris both inside them and down at the ground level so the water collected by your gutters doesn’t collect around the base of the house.
Your roof should be built at such an angle that water is not able to merely sit standing on any part of it for any period of time. Standing water on your roof will cause weak spots and will begin to leak inside the house and eventually cause standing water there, as well. Insulation soaks up water like candy and once it’s wet, it’s no longer effective and becomes a breeding ground for mold and other fungi.
Jim Corkern is a writer and respected contributor to the Water damage restoration and mold remediation Industry. Visit his sites for more information.
http://www.localrestoration.com and
http://www.moldrestorationusa.com
If you live in an extreme climate such as on that receives an exceptional amount of rainfall or snowfall every year, you need to take some extra measures to prevent water damage to your home, since it’s likely to occur in these areas more than in some others. The more rain a home is subject to receiving upon it every year, the more likely it will seep inside and cause water damage to your home’s structural integrity. Make sure soil at the base of the home is piled upward so that water drains away from the foundation and into another area of the yard; if you can, have it drain into the ditch that usually runs beside most homes just next to the road.
Sometimes your gutters can be overloaded by water if the rainfall is harder than normal, so the gutters attached to the outside of your home need to be as large as necessary to handle a large amount of water. They should remain clear of debris such as leaves, sticks, and anything else that can stop them up. Being sure these are cleaned thoroughly might be a pain, but when you think about the money that’s spent on water damaged homes every year, you’re actually saving yourself a lot of trouble.
Be sure the downspouts that are connected to your gutters are free and clear of debris both inside them and down at the ground level so the water collected by your gutters doesn’t collect around the base of the house.
Your roof should be built at such an angle that water is not able to merely sit standing on any part of it for any period of time. Standing water on your roof will cause weak spots and will begin to leak inside the house and eventually cause standing water there, as well. Insulation soaks up water like candy and once it’s wet, it’s no longer effective and becomes a breeding ground for mold and other fungi.
Jim Corkern is a writer and respected contributor to the Water damage restoration and mold remediation Industry. Visit his sites for more information.
http://www.localrestoration.com and
http://www.moldrestorationusa.com
Preventing Water Damaging in Electronics
People would not get as bent out of shape about their cell phone getting wet if it wasn’t for the reason that they were probably using it at the time. Often is the case that electronics cease to function once they make contact with water because the device is powered on when it hits the liquid. If you are one of the unfortunate many who has dropped a electronic device in the drink, don’t worry about it. Just make sure that it wasn’t on when you dropped it in. While water can cause damage to electronics, the electricity that causes it to work is what causes the machine to fry like an egg on the windshield of your car in triple digit weather. Turning on your device after it has been submerged will cause the electric current to run through it and will usually render the device useless.
There are obvious ways to prevent your device from being submerged in water. One such way is called being careful. But this method isn’t always effective. If your device is, let’s say, a cell phone, a cover for it is your best bet. While a cover won’t always, well, cover it, it will be a great way to prevent a good deal of moisture. If, say, your computer has some water spilled on it (and just what are you doing with liquids around your computer, anyway?) you should IMMEDIATELY unplug it and wait for roughly two weeks so that it has dried out, and there is no water to cause its very unpleasant death. It is very important that you keep the device in a cool, dry area that won’t pick up condensation, because that will cause the device to take longer to dry, and additional water damage can be done. It is also important to wait for a week or two, and to make sure that you do NOT shake the device to see if there is still water in it. This can just cause damage to the device, and then you will have waited for probably nothing.
Now, if you are the kind of person who doubts their repertoire of electronics knowledge, it’s best to simply take the device to an electronics repairman. You will have to shell out a few bucks, but not as many as you paid for the device. This can also be taken as a chance to make sure there is nothing else wrong with the device that should be fixed before it is used again.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
water damage restoration companies and
mold remediation companies across the united states.
There are obvious ways to prevent your device from being submerged in water. One such way is called being careful. But this method isn’t always effective. If your device is, let’s say, a cell phone, a cover for it is your best bet. While a cover won’t always, well, cover it, it will be a great way to prevent a good deal of moisture. If, say, your computer has some water spilled on it (and just what are you doing with liquids around your computer, anyway?) you should IMMEDIATELY unplug it and wait for roughly two weeks so that it has dried out, and there is no water to cause its very unpleasant death. It is very important that you keep the device in a cool, dry area that won’t pick up condensation, because that will cause the device to take longer to dry, and additional water damage can be done. It is also important to wait for a week or two, and to make sure that you do NOT shake the device to see if there is still water in it. This can just cause damage to the device, and then you will have waited for probably nothing.
Now, if you are the kind of person who doubts their repertoire of electronics knowledge, it’s best to simply take the device to an electronics repairman. You will have to shell out a few bucks, but not as many as you paid for the device. This can also be taken as a chance to make sure there is nothing else wrong with the device that should be fixed before it is used again.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
water damage restoration companies and
mold remediation companies across the united states.
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