Bruce K. Rubin
Jun Tamaoki
Editors

2005

The antibiotic era began in earnest during World War II with the “miracle of penicillin”. Following the introduction of penicillin, the quest was on to discover similar antimicrobial agents. In the late 1940s, erythromycin A was isolated from a soil sample found in the Philippine island of Iloilo, and in 1952 erythromycin was introduced by Eli Lilly Company under the name of Ilosone, as an alternative to penicillin for emerging penicillin-resistance bacteria.