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Many of you are in this world only because fungi saved your life, or the life of one of your parents or grandparents. To get an idea what fungi is you need to remember a piece of bread that you once forgot in a bag, or a tea that stayed in a teapot for a week. You’ll discover that your bread or your tea then got a beautiful greenish colour flourishing with small ’flowers’.

BEAUTY

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These are fungi. If you don't believe in it, then you need to know that antibiotics, chemicals that effectively cure many diseases, are made of fungi.

EFFECT

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In 1929, Alexander Fleming, a doctor and a researcher, published a paper on a chemical he called "penicillin", which he had received from a fungi. He became the first person who found out that penicillin may kill bacteria.

RESEARCH

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In 1938 successfull scientists from Oxford University were able to grow, extract and purify enough penicillin to prove that it may be used as a medicine.

SUCCESS

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Penicillin has a magic ability to cure people of many bacterial infections. It was first used as a treatment to cure wounded soldiers during the World War II. It has saved so many lives that it is easy to understand why it was once called a 'miracle drug'.

TREAT