Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Home Made Penicillin

I'm not entirely sure where this came from, but thanks to who ever put these instructions together.

If you've followed the progress of big pharma, many excellent antibiotics have fallen out of favor either because one or two strains of a bug have developed a resistance to the drug, or because the patent ran out and it just wasn't profitable enough.

Many infections can still be effectively treated with such tried and true antibiotics such as penicillin.

If things keep heading down the drain, this may be very valuable information. Imagine if you can synthesize an antibiotic when no one else can. How valuable do you think that will be?

About the ingredients:

Lactose Monohydrate is commonly known as "milk sugar". It is available in health food stores, and online at places like E-bay and Amazon. Sometimes it is sold under simply "lactose powder".

Corn Starch shouldn't need any explanation. Available in grocery stores.

Sodium Nitrate available online and in chemistry supply stores.

Magnesium Sulfate is commonly known as "Epsom Salts" and is available in drug stores.

Monopotassium Phosphate is available online, and also in health food stores and drug stores.

Glucose Monohydrate (Dextrose) is available online and in health food stores.

Zinc Sulfate is available online and also in drug stores and health food stores.

Manganese Sulfate is available online and also in home improvement / hardware stores and gardening centers.

The liquid referred to before the outlined extraction process can be consumed or used as a topical antibacterial. If you seek to form a powdered, stable version of the drug, you will need to perform the extraction process.

HCL (Hydrochloric Acid) is also known as Muriatic Acid and is available in pool supply stores.

Ethyl Acetate is available online.

All of these substances are able to be grown, extracted and synthesized from common materials, so even if you run out of any stored ingredients you have put up, you can always make more of your own. Just do the research and put the processes away in your little notebook.


CULTURE OF PENICILLIN

USE ASEPTIC TECHNIQUE THROUGHOUT THIS PROCEDURE

Step 1
Prepare a penicillium culture by exposing a slice of bread or citrus peel to the air at 70 deg. F until a bluish-green mold develops.

Cut two slices of whole wheat bread into ½ inch cubes and place in a 750ml Erlenmeyer flask with a cotton (non-absorbent) plug. It is important that the bread does not contain any mold inhibitors such as “mycoban”. Sterilize the flask and contents in a pressure cooker for at least 15 minutes at 15 pounds. An alternate method is to place in an oven at 315 deg F for one hour.

Using a sterile transfer loop (flamed) transfer the spores from the bread or peel into the flask containing the bread cubes.

Allow the cubes to incubate in the dark at 70 deg F for 5 days. After incubation, store in the refrigerator for not longer than two weeks.

Step 2
Prepare one liter of the following media:

Lactose Monohydrate 44.0 gm
Corn Starch 25.0 gm
Sodium Nitrate 3.0 gm
Magnesium Sulfate 0.25 gm
Potassium Phosphate Mono 0.50 gm
Glucose Monohydrate 2.75 gm
Zinc Sulfate 0.044 gm
Manganese Sulfate 0.044 gm

Dissolve in order in 500ml of cold tap water and add sufficient cold tap water to make one liter.

Adjust pH to 5.0-5.5 using HCL. Fill a series of milk bottles with a quantity of this media. Use only enough media so that when the bottle is placed on its side the media will not touch the cotton plug.

Sterilize the bottles and media in a pressure cooker or stove as previously outlined. When cool, inoculate with spores from the bread cubes. Use approximately the equivalent of one tablespoon.

Allow bottles to incubate on their sides at 70 deg F for 7 days. It is important that the bottles are not disturbed during this time. At the end of 7 days if your culture is capable of producing penicillin it will be dispersed in the liquid portion of the media.

Filter fermentation media, plug with cotton and refrigerate immediately. Use as soon as possible.

Step 3
To extract the penicillin the following procedure may be attempted. Do the following technique as rapidly as possible.

Adjust the cold fermentation filtrate to pH 2.2 using .01/N HCL. Mix cold filtrate with cold ethyl acetate in a separatory funnel and shake well for 30 seconds.

Drain the ethyl acetate into a beaker which has been placed in an ice bath and repeat the process until all filtrate is depleted.

Add 1% potassium acetate and mix. Permit ethyl acetate (flammable) to evaporate. This can be induced by a constant flow of air over the top of the beaker.

The remaining crystals are a mixture of potassium penicillin and potassium acetate.

WARNING: DO THE EXTRACTION AS RAPIDLY AS POSSIBLE!

*authors note: potassium acetate is a preservative and is commonly used as an acidity regulator in processed foods. It'll help the penicillin last longer on the shelf provided it is kept in a dry, closed container and away from light and heat.

3 comments:

Western Mass. Man said...

Oh cool!
Thanks Catman. Gonna have to bookmark that one.

Survivalist said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Survivalist said...

Western Mass Man, if there's one thing I have learned about the internet it is that instead of bookmarking you should make a copy. This is particularly true with this current government, you never know if something will mysteriously disappear. This was a good find and certainly deserves to be saved in my digital library.