The Golden Staph: Medicine's Response to the Challenge of the Resistant Staphylococci in the Mid-Twentieth Century

Abstract

During ttie first two decades of the antibiotic era the problem of microbia! resistance to antibiotic therapy was discovered, challenged and, iri part, the battle was wori. The chemotherapeutic agents, antibiotics, werc often touted as ((miracle drugs)), but were not without severe tests arid riot unconinion lost skirmishes. The refractory resistance of one particular pathogen, Staphylococcus aureus, the Golden Staph, was to cause corisidcrable difficulties for the new medicine of the 1940s and 1950s. It secarried that rio sooner had penicillin become available than Charles Rarrinielkarrip (b. 191 l), one of the first phvsicians to employ it, discovcred resistarice to its antimicrobial abilities (1).