Question

Which of the following diseases are treated by antibiotics ?
(i) plague
(ii) Diphtheria
(iii) Leprosy
(iv) Whooping cough
A. (i), (ii) and (iii)
B. (i), (iii) and (iv)
C. (ii), (iii) and (iv)
D. (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv)

Answer 1

A wide range of organisms belonging to bacteria, viruses, fungi etc. could cause diseases in humans. Antibiotics help in treating diseases caused by bacteria.

Complete Answer:
- Diseases causing organisms are called pathogens. Most parasites are therefore pathogens that cause harm to the host by living in or on them. The pathogens can enter our body by various means and interfere with normal vital activities resulting in morphological and functional damage. Pathogens have to adapt to life within the environment of the host. For example, the pathogen that enters the gut must know a way of surviving in the stomach at low PH in resisting the various digestive enzymes.
- Antibodies are chemical substances which are produced by some microbes and can kill or retard the growth of other diseases causing microbes.
- The first antibody to be discovered was penicillin. Antibiotics can be bacteriostatic or bactericidal
- After penicillin other antibiotics were also purified from other microbes.
- Antibodies have greatly improved our capacity to treat deadly diseases such as plague, whooping cough, Leprosy and Diphtheria . Which used to kill millions of people all over the globe.

So the correct answer is (D).

Note: Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic. It was accidentally produced by penicillium notatum. Full potential of penicillin as an effective antibody was established by Ernest Chain and Howard Florey.