Sulfa Drugs Usher In the Antibiotic Era
- Date
- 1935
- Category
- Science, technology & invention
- Region
- Europe (Germany)
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
The sulfa drugs were the first medicines able to cure a broad range of bacterial infections, opening the antibiotic age years before penicillin became available.
The breakthrough traced to Prontosil, a red azo dye whose antibacterial power was demonstrated by German pathologist Gerhard Domagk at Bayer; it reached the market in 1935. French researchers soon showed that the active agent was a colourless component, sulfanilamide, which could not be patented—so the class spread rapidly and cheaply worldwide. The impact on mortality was dramatic and measurable: in England the death rate from puerperal (childbed) fever fell from roughly 175 per 100,000 births before 1935 to about 80 by 1938, saving thousands of mothers. Sulfa powders became battlefield staples, and the drugs treated pneumonia, meningitis, and wound infections that had long been death sentences. Domagk received the 1939 Nobel Prize in Medicine, though the Nazi regime forced him to decline it. The sulfonamides proved that chemicals could selectively kill bacteria inside the body, inaugurating modern chemotherapy.
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Empires active in 1935
- Soviet Union1922 CE – 1991 CE
- Empire of Japan1868 CE – 1947 CE
- French Colonial Empire (Second)1830 CE – 1962 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
Related science, technology & invention events
- Discovery of nuclear fissionDecember 1938 (explained January–February 1939)
- Penicillin and the dawn of the antibiotic era1928 (developed for clinical use 1940–1945)
- Formulation of quantum mechanics1925–1927
- Haber-Bosch Process Industrialises Synthetic Nitrogen FertiliserSeptember 1913
- The Wright Brothers' Powered Flight17 December 1903
- Discovery of X-rays and radioactivity1895–1898
Also relevant
Further reading
The wider story
A Little History of Science
Warm, jargon-free tour of discovery from Babylonian stargazers to the genome.
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