In this non-specialist account of the discovery of penicillin, streptomycin and other antibiotics, Milton Wainwright draws together historical facts about the pioneers of some six thousand antibiotics which have been described to date. He discusses the antecedents of antibiotics, providing evidence to show that moulds have been used in folk medicine since antiquity to treat infections. A description of the even more bizarre use of live maggots to treat bacterial infections shows the desperate measures to which doctors had to resort before the advent of antibiotics.