Question

Ancient Egyptians applied mouldy bread on infected cuts and wounds to heal them. Why do you think this helped in healing the wounds? Nowadays we do not use mouldy bread to cure infection. What do we use instead?

Answer 1

We are aware that some of the moulds or fungi are used to produce antibiotics. Antibiotics are chemicals which kill or stop the growth of disease causing microbes. Although, the ancient Egyptians were not aware of the concept of antibiotics but they were well aware about the wound healing properties of these moulds. These chemicals produced by the moulds helped in the healing of wounds by restricting the growth of microorganisms or by killing them.

Nowadays, we can culture these fungi and extract antibiotics from them or we can synthesise the antibiotics artificially.