What Do Antibiotics Do? Antibiotics stop the growth of microbes
in the body. CREDIT: Pills image via Shutterstock When you get
sick, more often than not the miscreant is a microbe, and
doctors often fight back with antibiotics. The relationship
between microscopic misery merchants and antibiotics is like
that of the Bloods and the Crips. One just can't stomach the
other. On contact one either kills the other or keeps it from
reproducing and increasing its turf, the human body. This rumble
dates back thousands of years to when concoctions with natural-
antibiotic-packed ingredients like sour milk and turtle shell
were used to turn the tide in corporal turf wars. The age of
modern antibiotics started in 1926 when Alexander Fleming
discovered that a fungal mold made penicillin and that
penicillin could keep some kinds of bacteria at bay. Since then
a bevy of antibiotics — some produced naturally and other
synthesized — have prevented bacteria that cause tonsillitis,
tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and many other maladie