In 1969 when Dr. William H. Stewart claimed that the war against pestilence was won, he had no idea how wrong his statement was. Were he able to see what the future of antibiotics held, he would never have said, “It is time to close the book on infectious diseases, and declare the war against pestilence won”. He was completely oblivious to important aspects of antibiotics including their ineffectiveness on viruses and the potential harm that would be caused by their overuse.
Although at the time antibiotics seemed to be the remedy for almost any infectious disease, this was not the case. Doctors continuously prescribed antibiotics for almost everything, resulting in extreme misuse of this drug. Despite the fact that antibiotics may aid greatly in destroying bacteria, they are completely ineffective when used against viruses. At this time doctors were unaware that taking antibiotics for viral infections actually did more harm than good. Viruses and bacteria’s molecular and protein structure as well as their mechanisms of infections are completely different, making antibiotics utterly useless when used to fight viruses.
Little did Dr. William H. Stewart know, but the overuse of antibiotics would create as many problems as it seemed to solve. Blown away by the miracles that antibiotics seemed to perform, doctors began prescribing antibiotics to almost everyone. This lead to extreme overexposure, which caused bacteria to build up resistance against the antibiotics. Antibiotics become ineffective at killing or limiting the growth of bacteria. Some bacteria develop the ability to neutralize the antibiotic before it can harm them whereas other can change the antibiotic attack site so it is unable to affect the function of the bacteria, all due to misuse of antibiotics.
In 1969 antibiotics seemed to be the remedy for all infectious diseases. If Dr. William H. Stewart were able to glimpse into the future and see the events that antibiotics would undergo, his quote declaring of triumph against the war on pestilence would likely not have come out of his mouth. Today, the only way to possibly slow or reverse resistance due to drastic misuse and overexposure of antibiotics, is to be responsible about the way we use antibiotics. Researches continue to work on the development of new antibiotics and other treatments of bacterial infections, which will hopefully result in future victory in the war against infectious diseases.
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