Antibiotic antagonist: the curious career of René Dubos

Only rarely do historians mention another miracle drug, gramicidin, and the Rockefeller researcher who discovered it, René Dubos. To some extent this is understandable: despite being hailed in 1939 as a "hundred thousand times" more powerful than the sulpha drugs, gramicidin proved highly toxic when administered intravenously and although it was widely used during World War 2 to treat wounds and other topical infections it was soon eclipsed by streptomycin.