Medical Doctor Attempts to Make Penicillin | Outlander Makes
CLAIRE: Hey everyone, Iām Claire, weāre on Fraserās Ridge and today weāre making ā¦. penicillin!
PART ONE: WHAT IS PENICILLIN?
CLAIRE: Penicillin has been on my list for Outlander Makes for a very long time, almost since the beginning. Itās one of my favorite medicines. I just love that it can kill bacteria and save lives. It has that unique property of being made from mold, and I think it will be a cool learning opportunity for me because I just love penicillin.
Penicillin is effective against staphylococci and streptococci bacteria, some of the most common bacterial infections seen on the Ridge. It was the first modern antibiotic, which I suppose is relative. But penicillin itself comes from a secretion of molds in the genus Penicillium.
I canāt believe how much Outlander Makes makes me think about my university science classes.
Itās time for my favorite part: reading the ingredients. And wow, this is a short list: benzylpenicillin.
Time to go do some research. All of which is stored in my brain because itās 1771 and penicillin wonāt be officially discovered for 157 years.
Anyways, molds have been used to fight infections since ancient times. Thereās evidence ancient peoples in Egypt, Greece and India used certain fungi and molds in their medicine, according to my Uncle Lambās research. But penicillin as I know it, in the future, was first discovered in a bread mold in 1928 by a Scot named Andrew Flemming, but then it wouldnāt be used in human medicine until 1942.
So, I think Iām going to start with bread. But the mold spores are just in the air, and thereās no reason another food couldnāt be a growing medium. So weāll just have to see what works best. Iām excited. I think this is going to work.
PART TWO: HOW DO YOU MAKE PENICILLIN?
CLAIRE: Iāve got a whole bunch of extra bread, so Iām going to tear it up and leave it out and see what it grows. Marsali is also out collecting food scraps from the other settlers, things destined for the pig trough, that weāll test as well.
Iām tempted to put my samples under glass cloches to keep mice and bugs and other pests out, but Iām concerned that they will prevent mold spores in the air from getting to the bread, so weāre going to try both.
MRS. BUG: Sheās gone mad, she has. Up all night baking more bread than the Lord when he fed the multitudes with the loaves and fishes.
BRIANA: Woah. Youāre not planning to eat all that, are you?
CLAIRE: No, Iām going to let it go moldy.
MRS. BUG: What a terrible waste.
BRIANA: Please tell me youāre being sarcastic.
CLAIRE: What, me? Never. Iām making penicillin.
BRIANA: Then Mrs. Bug is right, you have lost your mind. You canāt do that.
CLAIRE: Yes, I can. And not just with bread, weāre going to test other food scraps too. Then, weāll find the right strain.
BRIANA: This is dangerous. What if it messes with some cosmic balance? Or breaks some rule of space and time? Isnāt this playing God?
CLAIRE: I change the future every time I save a life here. And now Iām going to do it even better. So, time, space, history be damned.
See, now all the bread is set up. Marsali will be back soon, and weāll set up her scraps the same way, and then we wait.
CLAIRE: Itās a little dark in here because I wanted to keep the samples out of the sun. The bread and other samples have been left to mold for three days, and now weāre going to check and see how it went. Iām in that delusionally optimistic headspace where I think this might work on the first try.
Iām looking for a blue-green mold, maybe with a white outer ring. Iāve got my microscope and candles ready, so I can examine the mold more closely. What I donāt want is Aspergillus, another type of mold that grows under similar conditions but is very toxic and instead of curing infections would actually ā¦ kill my patients faster. So, if we see any fuzzier molds that are green, gray or black, that would be bad.
So, on a few of these samples I very clearly lost the battle against ants and some mice. The ones under the cloches fared better, but thereās not yet anything that looks like mold yet. This is going to take longer than I thought.
In the meantime, Iām going to work on the incubation medium that Iāll use to make even more penicillin once we grow the mold ā which, we absolutely will. And for that I need Jamie.
CLAIRE: Could you go kill me something I can make into broth?
JAMIE: You canna slaughter a chicken yourself?
CLAIRE: I can, but could you just help out for the common good? And if you donāt want to kill a chicken you could go hunt something else, right?
JAMIE: Claire, what if you waste all this food and you donāt get your medicine?
CLAIRE: I want you to know I can accept zero criticism right now.
JAMIE: Then Iāll be back with some meat for your broth.
CLAIRE: Itās day three! Well, itās been a week but itās day three of work. No, thereās no curse. Stop trying to make a day three curse happen.
Jamie shot a goose, and Bree plucked it for me, and Mrs. Bug made it into this broth. Iāve got to check out our bread and food samples and see if any Penicillium molds have grown. And ā¦ there are a lot of molds here! Turns out more than one mold can grow on bread. Iām looking for the classic blue-green color, and there is more than just blue-green here. This pie crust did a little better ā see the white outer ring, and thereās no black, like on this bread sample. This is promising.
If I remember my textbooks correctly, Penicillium will look like a stalk of wheat with a branched end under the microscope. If the end is more like a fuzzy ball, itās the killer Aspergillus mold that I talked about earlier. Iām going to make slides and see if I can positively identify any of these as penicillin.
CLAIRE: OK, Iām down to the last two slides, and so far itās a big fat nothing.
ROGER: What is going well right now?
CLAIRE: Nothing. This whole thing is a disaster. If these donāt have the right mold, Iāve wasted this whole week and all this food and will have to start over.
CLAIRE: Say a prayer, Roger. Andā¦. got them. I was right about the pie crust ā thatās definitely a Penicillium colony growing. I love it when Iām good at stuff.
ROGER: We all knew you could do it.
CLAIRE: Bree thinks Iām breaking the time-space continuum, but there it is! Thatās penicillin!
So, my next step is to prepare the incubation mediums. Iāve got the broth Mrs. Bug kindly prepared, and Iām going to strain it and then boil it. I also need to sterilize the bowls, so Iām boiling some water for that. And then I have these muslin cloths that Iāve also boiled and air dried as best as I could, which will keep things like insects, bugs, mice and other critters out. Itās nearly impossible to achieve true sterility in these conditions, but itās important to try.
And then Iām going to use these confirmed Penicillium samples and use a sterilized knife to put them into the broth to incubate. The thing about penicillin is that the mold itself isnāt antibiotic, but the moldās secretions, so thatās what Iām trying to produce and capture.
So, Iāll leave this to do its thing. Weāll check back in a few more days.
CLAIRE: WHAT DO YOU MEAN ONE OF THE CHILDREN GOT IN HERE AND KNOCKED OVER ONE OF THE BOWLS?
CLAIRE: ADSO! GET AWAY FROM THERE! NO, STOP DRINKING IT!
JAMIE: Are you done with your experiment, Sassenach?
CLAIRE: Noooo. I canāt believe that you canāt sense right now that I am not in a good place.
CLAIRE: I guess itās time to check the remaining bowls and see how incubation went. Like with the bread and food samples, Iām looking for Penicilliumās distinctive blue-green coloring with a white ring around the outside. So, the first bowl: nope, thatās not it. See those hairy, green clumps that look like submerged sea beasts? It could be another mold, bacterium, or maybe a colonial alga, but itās not at all what Iām looking for.
But this second one, yes, this looks promising. See the colony in there? Looks like Penicillium to me. And, itās worked in two more of these bowls. Three out of six isnāt a terrible average, even if two of my bowls got canned.
Iām going to have to check under the microscope again to be sure, but Iām, like 98 percent sure thatās it. Iāll strain the broth once more, to get the solid mold parts out. Itās the moldās secretions you want, not the mold itself.
JAMIE: So what youāve got there is broth that the mold has pissed in, is that right?
CLAIRE: Well, if you insist on putting it that way, yes. This was so much work, and itās so unsure. This is a huge advancement in medicine for this time. It was way easier to mix up gentian ointment, or to set up the beehives, but maybe it was less satisfying. Is it better to not work that hard and not be that satisfied or to work really hard and be exhausted and somewhat more satisfied? I donāt know. Basically, thereās no way to win.
PART THREE: HOW TO MAKE PENICILLIN
CLAIRE: Hereās how you make penicillin.
Tear up pie crust and other food scraps, including bread, and leave them out to mold under glass cloches for five to seven days, keeping the cultures out of direct sunlight and away from pests. When the food starts to mold, identify Penicillium by its coloring and then under a microscope, looking for the moldās distinctive branching pattern. Use a sterilized knife to distribute samples of your Penicillium into sterilized bowls of strained and boiled broth that has been cooled. Cover with sterilized muslin cloths and leave to incubate for several days. To use, check that broth has grown more Penicillium mold, by both the moldās coloring and by shape under magnification. Strain the mold out of the broth, and use it to treat infection.
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