How Were Infections Treated Before Antimicrobial Therapies?

For over two thousand years, bloodletting was a standard treatment for almost any ailment, including infectious diseases. In an attempt to alleviate symptoms, bloodletting practitioners used various instruments to withdraw blood from patients, including syringes, lancets, and even leeches.¹

For centuries, bloodletting was practiced in ancient Egypt and Greece; in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia during the medieval era; and as late as the nineteenth century in parts of the Western world.¹ In its final years of mainstream use, bloodletting was carried out by barbers. In fact, the traditional red and white striped pole associated with barbershops comes from bloodletting—red represented blood and white represented bandages.²

Bloodletting has since been disavowed by modern medicine as it was eventually proven to be more harmful than helpful to patients.

In 1928, Alexander Fleming, a professor of bacteriology at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, discovered the first antibiotic therapy—penicillin. This discovery was made by accident when a bacterial culture plate in Fleming’s laboratory became contaminated with a mold called Penicillium notatum. Upon close examination, Fleming noticed that the mold prevented the growth of the bacteria. Penicillium fungi were then developed into the antibiotic therapy we know as penicillin.⁶

Since its discovery nearly a century ago, penicillin has saved millions of lives and has become the most used antibiotic therapy in the world. Penicillin has revolutionized the treatment of deadly infectious diseases, including meningitis, pneumonia, and septicemia.

Syndromic testing is a cutting-edge frontline solution in the fight against infectious disease and antibiotic resistance. The BIOFIRE^® FILMARRAY^® System uses multiplex PCR technology to target a comprehensive menu of causative pathogens and antimicrobial resistance genes with greater speed and accuracy than traditional testing methods.

By testing at the molecular level, syndromic testing from BIOFIRE can provide accurate, pathogen-specific results in about an hour. In combination with an institution’s antimicrobial stewardship plan, the BIOFIRE System can help healthcare providers avoid the unnecessary use or misuse of critical antibiotic therapies.

We continuously work to optimize existing panels and create brand-new products to help in the ever-changing fight against infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance. For example, we updated the FDA-approved BIOFIRE^® Respiratory 2.1 Panel to include fast, accurate SARS-CoV-2 detection.