An entertaining and brief but fully documented review of the methods by which discoverers of antibiotics have chosen names for them is given by D. Perlman of the School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin.
Antibiotics named after Organisms:
Some of the best known, and a total of about 500, have names derived from the organisms producing them, either that of the genus (penicillin, streptomycin, cephalosporins) or of the species (griseofulvin from Penicillium griseofulvum). A few, such as staphylomycin and gramicidin, denote not the source but the organisms susceptible to them.
Antibiotics named after Places:
These antibiotics are named after the geographical sources of the soil where the producing organism was cultivated.
Pimaricin, a useful antifungal antibiotic was named after Pietermaritzburg, near which the soil yielding Streptomyces natalensis was collected.
Nystatin, is the only antibiotic named after the institution in which it was isolated, the laboratories of the New York State Board of Health.
Antibiotics named after people:
1Bacitracin-- Margaret Tracy being the child with a compound fracture from whose wound the producing Bacillus was isolated, where its growth was apparently contributing to overcoming septic infection.
2Helenine, an antibiotic of no clinical value but having an interesting action on some virus infections in mice, was so named by the late R. E. Shope after his wife Helen, because he found the mould producing the antibiotic growing on the cover of a photograph of her which he was carrying while serving in the war in the Pacific.
3saramycetin (a sulphur-containing peptide with systemic antifungal activity) was named after a mother-in-law.
Antibiotics with Peculiar Names
Reference: BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL, 759, 28 SEPTEMBER 1974.
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