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Since the 1940s, when penicillin became widely available, antibiotics have been hailed as miracle drugs for their ability to safely eliminate bacteria from infected patients. Diseases such as tuberculosis, staphylococcal sepsis, syphilis, gonorrhea, and strep-throat were successfully overcome by antibiotics, and millions of lives were saved. Today, a critical public health crisis is unfolding precisely because these antibiotic miracle drugs have worked so well. Medical practitioners are encountering disease strains that have acquired resistance to currently available antibacterial products. As a result, the successful treatment of bacterial disease has now become increasingly difficult, as pathogenic bacteria have become resistant to most of the existing antibiotics.
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