Medicines without which modern life cannot be imagined, each of them has interesting stories behind its discovery.
Before the invention of anesthetics, people died of shock during operations.
It is a difficult task to assess the impact of any drug on the history of the world, but here we are going to mention five drugs that can easily be claimed to have changed our lives in a big way. Changed on a scale and often in ways beyond our imagination.
These medicines bring with them some incredible benefits. But in general, their legacy includes many benefits as well as complications that we need to look at critically.
It should be well remembered that the medicine that surprises us with its benefits today may cause problems tomorrow.
1: Anesthetics
In the late 18th century, an English chemist, Joseph Presley, created a gas that he named 'phlogisticated nitrous air' (nitrous oxide).
English chemist Humphrey Davy believed it could be used as a pain reliever in surgery, though it soon became a recreational drug instead.
The next major breakthrough in this regard came in 1834 when the French chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas developed a new gas, chloroform.
Scottish doctor James Young Simpson used it in 1847 to facilitate childbirth.
Anesthesia was soon used more widely during surgery, and the results were quite encouraging.
Before anesthesia, the surgical procedure was extremely painful and unbearable. Imagine the body of a living person being ripped open with sharp instruments and then stitched together with the tip of a needle. Even the patients often died from the excruciating pain.
But any drug that can make people unconscious can also cause harm. Even today, anesthetics are not considered safe because they can permanently damage the nervous system.
2: Penicillin
What happened to Dr. Alexander Fleming of Scotland in 1928 is a classic example of accidental drug discovery.
Fleming left some specimens of the bacteria called streptococcus on his laboratory table and went on vacation.
When they returned, they found that a type of fungus called Penicillin in the air had stopped the bacteria from growing.
The substance they isolated from this fungus was named penicillin. Australian pathologist Howard Florey and his team stabilized penicillin and conducted the first human trials.
With US funding, penicillin was mass-produced and changed the course of World War II. It was used to treat thousands of soldiers.
Penicillin and its descendants play a very fundamental role against diseases that kill millions of people in a single attack.
However, due to their widespread use, some bacteria do not allow the drugs used to treat other diseases to be effective.
Fleming's deep love for humanity may have been further expressed by the fact that he avoided making a fortune by keeping the rights to penicillin or selling it.
In the medical field, when referring to broader human ethics, he is often quoted as saying, 'I discovered penicillin and gave it away for free for the good of humanity.
Why should it be given over to the profitable monopoly of industrialists in other countries?'
3: Nitroglycerin
Nitroglycerin was invented in 1847 and overtook gunpowder as the world's most powerful explosive.
But it was later discovered that this destructive material could also be used as the first modern drug to treat angina, a disease associated with heart disease that causes chest pain.
It was learned that factory workers who were directly exposed to the explosives developed headaches and facial wrinkles.
When scientists investigated, they found that this is because nitroglycerin is a vasodilator, meaning it dilates or opens up blood vessels.
London physician William Morrell experimented with nitroglycerin on himself and tried it on angina patients, giving them almost immediate relief.
Nitroglycerin made it possible for millions of people with angina to lead relatively normal lives.
It also paved the way for many other drugs, including drugs that lower blood pressure, regulate heart rate, and lower blood cholesterol. These drugs have extended life and increased the average age in Western countries.
But as people live longer, the death rate from cancer and other non-communicable diseases has increased. Because as we age, many human cells become inactive and turn into toxic substances, and ultimately, chronic diseases begin to push us towards death. However, we can say that nitroglycerin changed the world like no one could have imagined.
4: The contraceptive pill
In the early 1920s, Austrian scientist Ludwig Heberland described in a research paper how pregnancy could be prevented by fluctuating hormones in animals.
He faced severe criticism from his colleagues, but nevertheless carried out his experiments on female rabbits. This chapter ended there with his alleged suicide in 1932. A few decades later such experiments were carried out more effectively in America.
American author Margaret Sanger, a strong advocate of reducing birth rates, asked researcher Gregory Pincus to develop a drug that would be a hormonal contraceptive.
It was financed by Catherine McCormick, who inherited a large fortune.
As a result of their research, Pinkus found that progesterone inhibits the release of an egg from the ovary, which they used to develop a trial pill.
Clinical trials were conducted especially in Puerto Rico on vulnerable women who were concerned that they were not informed beforehand about its benefits, risks and side effects
How were the five drugs that changed the world invented?
Medicines without which modern life cannot be imagined, each of them has interesting stories behind its discovery.
Before the invention of anesthetics, people died of shock during operations (dynamosquito/flickr, CC BY-SA)
It is a difficult task to assess the impact of any drug on the history of the world, but here we are going to mention five drugs that can easily be claimed to have changed our lives in a big way. Changed on a scale and often in ways beyond our imagination.
These medicines bring with them some incredible benefits. But in general, their legacy includes many benefits as well as complications that we need to look at critically.
It should be well remembered that the medicine that surprises us with its benefits today may cause problems tomorrow.
1: Anesthetics
In the late 18th century, an English chemist, Joseph Presley, created a gas that he named 'phlogisticated nitrous air' (nitrous oxide).
English chemist Humphrey Davy believed it could be used as a pain reliever in surgery, though it soon became a recreational drug instead.
The next major breakthrough in this regard came in 1834 when the French chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas developed a new gas, chloroform.
Scottish doctor James Young Simpson used it in 1847 to facilitate childbirth.
Anesthesia was soon used more widely during surgery and the results were quite encouraging.
Before anesthesia, the surgical procedure was extremely painful and unbearable. Imagine the body of a living person being ripped open with sharp instruments and then stitched together with the tip of a needle. Even the patients often died from the excruciating pain.
But any drug that can make people unconscious can also cause harm. Even today, anesthetics are not considered safe because they can permanently damage the nervous system.
2: Penicillin
What happened to Dr. Alexander Fleming of Scotland in 1928 is a classic example of accidental drug discovery.
Fleming left some specimens of the bacteria called streptococcus on his laboratory table and went on vacation.
When they returned, they found that a type of fungus called Penicillium in the air had stopped the bacteria from growing.

Antibiotics have saved millions of lives (Antony Scimone by MMU Engage/flickr, CC BY-SA)
The substance they isolated from this fungus was named penicillin. Australian pathologist Howard Florey and his team stabilized penicillin and conducted the first human trials.
With US funding, penicillin was mass produced and changed the course of World War II. It was used to treat thousands of soldiers.
Penicillin and its descendants play a very fundamental role against diseases that kill millions of people in a single attack.
However, due to their widespread use, some bacteria do not allow the drugs used to treat other diseases to be effective.
Fleming's deep love for humanity may have been further expressed by the fact that he avoided making a fortune by keeping the rights to penicillin or selling it.
In the medical field, when referring to broader human ethics, he is often quoted as saying, 'I discovered penicillin and gave it away for free for the good of humanity.
Why should it be given over to the profitable monopoly of industrialists in other countries?'
3: Nitroglycerin
Nitroglycerin was invented in 1847 and overtook gunpowder as the world's most powerful explosive.
But it was later discovered that this destructive material could also be used as the first modern drug to treat angina, a disease associated with heart disease that causes chest pain.

Dr. William Morrell of London found it useful for heart patients through self-experiments (Public Domain).
It was learned that factory workers who were directly exposed to the explosives developed headaches and facial wrinkles.
When scientists investigated, they found that this is because nitroglycerin is a vasodilator, meaning it dilates or opens up blood vessels.
London physician William Morrell experimented with nitroglycerin on himself and tried it on angina patients, giving them almost immediate relief.
Nitroglycerin made it possible for millions of people with angina to lead relatively normal lives.
It also paved the way for many other drugs, including drugs that lower blood pressure, regulate heart rate, and lower blood cholesterol. These drugs have extended life and increased the average age in Western countries.
But as people live longer, the death rate from cancer and other non-communicable diseases has increased. Because as we age, many human cells become inactive and turn into toxic substances, and ultimately, chronic diseases begin to push us towards death. However, we can say that nitroglycerin changed the world like no one could have imagined.
4: The contraceptive pill
In the early 1920s, Austrian scientist Ludwig Heberland described in a research paper how pregnancy could be prevented by fluctuating hormones in animals.
He faced severe criticism from his colleagues, but nevertheless carried out his experiments on female rabbits. This chapter ended there with his alleged suicide in 1932. A few decades later such experiments were carried out more effectively in America.
American author Margaret Sanger, a strong advocate of reducing birth rates, asked researcher Gregory Pincus to develop a drug that would be a hormonal contraceptive.
It was financed by Catherine McCormick, who inherited a large fortune.
As a result of their research, Pinkus found that progesterone inhibits the release of an egg from the ovary, which they used to develop a trial pill.
Clinical trials were conducted especially in Puerto Rico on vulnerable women who were concerned that they were not informed beforehand about its benefits, risks and side effects.
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The new drug was marketed under the name Enoid in 1960 by G. D. Searle and Company after approval by the US Food and Drug Administration.
It was allowed because its side risks, such as blood clotting and stroke, were several orders of magnitude less lethal than the risks posed by the pregnancy itself.
It took ten years to prove the link between contraceptive use and its serious side effects.
After a US government inquiry in the 1970s, the pill's hormone levels were dramatically reduced.
Another thing that resulted from this was that now any buyer would get an information leaflet inside each packet which would list the complete prescription.
The pill proved highly effective against a growing global population that made families shorter and more economically stable as jobs became easier for women and a new workforce became available.
However, questions still remain and remain unanswered as to how the medical profession performed experiments on the bodies of vulnerable women, especially in Puerto Rico, without prior permission and without informing them of the potential side effects.
5 Diazepam
Benzodiazepine, a type of nervous system tranquilizer, was first developed in 1955 and marketed as 'Librium' by the pharmaceutical company Hoffmann La Roche.
These and other drugs of this type were not marketed as 'treatments' for anxiety. Rather, they were used to engage in psychotherapy, i.e., psychotherapy was considered the real solution and merely an aid to its completion.
Polish-American chemist Leo Sternbach and his research group in 1959 chemically modified labrum into a more potent drug form. Thus diazepam came into being, which was marketed and sold under the brand name 'Valium' from 1963.
Such readily available and low-cost drugs had profound effects. From 1969 to 1982, Wellies was the best-selling drug in the United States.
These drugs laid the foundation for a whole new culture. Now people started to control stress and anxiety through medicines.
Valium paved the way for modern drugs to relieve anxiety and stress by calming the nervous system.
These new drugs were more difficult (but not impossible) to take in large doses and had fewer side effects. Fluoxetine was the first selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor to be marketed in 1987 under the name Prozac.
Note: This article was previously published on The Conversation and is being translated here with permission. Its author, Philippa Martyre, is a lecturer in pharmacology at the University of Western Australia.
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