The development of chemical compounds for the treatment of
infectious diseases may be divided into three phases: a) the discovery in the 1600s in South America of
alkaloid extracts from the bark of the cinchona tree and from the dried root of the ipecacuanha bush, which proved effective against, respectively,
malaria (
quinine) and
amoebic dysentery (
emetine); b) the development of
synthetic drugs, which mostly took place in Germany, starting with Paul Ehrlich's (1854-1915) discovery of
salvarsan (1909), and crowned with Gerhard Domagk's (1895-1964) discovery of the
sulfonamides (1930s); and c) the discovery of
antibiotics. The prime example of the latter is the development of
penicillin in the late 1920s following a discovery by a solitary research scientist who never worked in a team and never as part of a research programme. It took another ten years or so before
drug-quality
penicillin was produced, with research now dependent on being conducted in large collaborative teams, frequently between universities and wealthy industrial companies. The search for new
antibiotics began in earnest in the latter half of the 1940s and was mostly based on soil microorganisms. Many new
antibiotics were discovered in this period, which may be termed «the golden age of antibiotics». Over the past three decades, the development of new
antibiotics has largely stalled, while antibiotic resistance has increased. This situation may require new strategies for the treatment of
infectious diseases.