Jennifer Fisher Wilson | Mar 3, 2002 | 6 min read
In the 1940s, the mass production of penicillin led to a sensational reduction in illness and death from bacterial disease. A resulting golden era of bacterial research emerged with new classes of antibiotics, and by 1969, US Surgeon General William H. Stewart told Congress: "The time has come to close the book on infectious disease." As a result, fewer new students specialized in bacterial physiology, and federal funders shifted their focus to more immediately pressing diseases, as did many pha