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Penicillin
Dunno if this one's common knowledge, but it's a trick I learned awhile back. If you are in a SHTF situation, antibiotics are going to be nearly impossible to come by. There's a way you can get yourself a culture of penicillin mold for extreme situations.
First, get some wheat bread, tear it into chunks, and sterilize it with your pressure cooker/canner. It'll get pretty soggy, but shouldn't fall apart. Takes about 15 minutes at temperature.
Put it into a jar, and take it to your bedroom once it's cooled down. Hold it over the bed while the kids jump on it (or for the lack of kids, bang on the bed). What you're looking for is penicillium chrysogenum, which just happens to be found in large numbers (among other things you don't want to know about) in most beds in America. Put a paper filter (coffee filter) or some other filter with holes small enough to catch particulate, and large enough to allow the culture to "breath" and set the bread aside to mold.
Once you have some good mold going, make yourself a few simple petri dishes. (Chicken broth / gelatin, plenty of instructions online.) Any small bowl or dish can be used so long as it can be sterilized, and covered in a sterile manner. Doesn't hurt to actually purchase some real petri dishes to have on hand for all sorts of medical stuff. Some of these dishes keep clean, and the other ones, rub your finger on your face, sides of the nose, arm pits, etc. and touch to some of the petri dishes. Keep those in a dark warm (85-90ish area) to cook for a few days and go back to check them.
Now, right now is the time to snag some pictures of what Staphylococcus looks like in a petri dish so you can identify it. Print those pictures out, or memorize them. Staph is common on everyone, and it's a gram positive bacteria which makes it susceptible to penicillin. If you're a nerd like me, you'll also have a microscope and gram stain kit handy to verify. At any rate, identify your staph cultures, and start sterilizing some toothpicks, or if you've got it, make some tiny wire "loops" to sterilize. (Wire loops are easier since you can sterilize them with any non-sooting flame.)
If you're a week into the process, you should have some pretty good stuff going on with the bread. If you see some mold growing that has a whiter "outside" with a blu-green "inside" that's a good candidate for your penicillium chrysogenum. It may have some orange droplets in the middle too. The problem is that a lot of your penicilliums can look similar and the wrong ones simply won't help you at all.
Now, take some choice cultures from a few different of the "cultures" you have growing in your bread (using the loop or sterile toothpick) and place a half dozen "wads" of it (doesn't need to be much larger than a pin head) on one side of your petri dish. Space them out so they pretty evenly cover half. Using a different sterile loop, take a small dab of the Staph and place it in a few places on the other half, mirroring the first.
Do this for any cultures you think might be penicillium chrysogenum. Stick the whole mess (should have at least half a dozen petri dishes) into your incubator area and let them grow.
Now, the penicillin is NOT the mold. Instead, it's what the mold "poops" into the medium. So you are not looking for mold that just takes over the entire dish. That doesn't tell you anything, so you do want to check these every 24 hours. What you're looking for is a place where the mold is growing, and in the space BETWEEN the mold and bacterial growth, you see the bacteria receding well before the mold reaches it. This is your penicillin producing mold.
Now, take some MORE bread, sterilize it, and KEEP IT STERILE. Introduce JUST some of the penicillium chrysogenum mold to the bread and allow that to grow (making sure it's kept covered/sterile) until it "eats up" the bread and turns into a powdery gunk in the bottom of the jar. That powdery gunk is penicillium chrysogenum spores. Again, being careful not to contaminate it, use a sterile screen or sieve to filter out just the spores into a sterile funnel, and pour into a sterile jar. Wear a respirator for this step, then ventilate the area afterwards. While penicillin mold spores are perfectly safe to eat, breathing them: not so much. Keep in mind they'll also be VERY light, so you need a NON ventilated area to coax them into the funnel/bottle.
NOW...
Now that you have isolated your emergency penicillium chrysogenum spores, when you find yourself in need of a penicillin dose, you're already too late. (Sorry.) The spores by themselves are useless. Again, the penicillin is in the poop. BEFORE the emergency comes, you want to take a small flask of sterilized broth (not chicken broth, though I'd imagine that would work too. You want something with citric acid (orange juice) and maybe even some sugar in it. Experiment here, because I haven't done much past this point yet.) Add a small amount of the spores (making sure to keep everything as sterile as humanly possible) and let that cook in your incubator for about a week. The more surface area the mold has to grow on, the better. (ie: Your flask can be a small jar laid on its side)
After a week's worth of growth, the broth itself is going to be filled with penicillin. The problem here, though, is we have NO idea what dosage it's at, and no way to test it. This is where I tend to get hung up. You can put a drip of it in a petri dish with bacteria and watch it kill it off, but it still doesn't tell me if we're looking at 5mg or 500mg.
This liquid can be frozen, then vacuum sealed and kept almost indefinitely (if kept frozen). It also tastes horrible. (Imagine how penicillin pills taste. Now imagine if you ground those up and drank them as tea.) You can try adding honey and water to it to dilute it, but it'll still taste like mold poop.
With a sick person, start with half an ounce in the morning to see if they react. If by noon they're still okay, raise it by half an ounce every 6 hours until you're up to 3 ounces. Continue to give 3 ounces every 6 hours. If no improvement is seen on the third day, raise the dosage to 5 ounces. If by the 6th day, still no improvement, go to 8 ounces. If that doesn't kill them, then the disease probably will. Get a priest.
Once the person has gotten better, you MUST KEEP GIVING THEM the dosage every 6 hours for 3 more days. If the illness recedes and you stop the dosage before it's dead, it will not only return but could have developed a resistance in the meantime.
Needless to say, you should ONLY attempt this in a SHTF situation. You have no way of knowing what the reaction to unprocessed penicillin will be, or how much of a dose you're giving the person (it will be different with every batch, too).
As a side-note, some of the isolated mold growing on wheat bread can also be eaten (the mold itself is harmless) for an absolute emergency need it now situation, but the dosage on that is even harder to measure. It can also be used in a bandage for an infected cut.
Needless to say, if you actually try this, and kill yourself, don't blame me. This should only be attempted in a situation where there's no lawyers left.
Penicillin is very strong against most gram positive bacteria (which are the most common, fortunately.) While it is considerably weaker against gram negative bacteria, in high enough doses it CAN work against them. If you're allergic to penicillin, make sure not to get hurt.
First, get some wheat bread, tear it into chunks, and sterilize it with your pressure cooker/canner. It'll get pretty soggy, but shouldn't fall apart. Takes about 15 minutes at temperature.
Put it into a jar, and take it to your bedroom once it's cooled down. Hold it over the bed while the kids jump on it (or for the lack of kids, bang on the bed). What you're looking for is penicillium chrysogenum, which just happens to be found in large numbers (among other things you don't want to know about) in most beds in America. Put a paper filter (coffee filter) or some other filter with holes small enough to catch particulate, and large enough to allow the culture to "breath" and set the bread aside to mold.
Once you have some good mold going, make yourself a few simple petri dishes. (Chicken broth / gelatin, plenty of instructions online.) Any small bowl or dish can be used so long as it can be sterilized, and covered in a sterile manner. Doesn't hurt to actually purchase some real petri dishes to have on hand for all sorts of medical stuff. Some of these dishes keep clean, and the other ones, rub your finger on your face, sides of the nose, arm pits, etc. and touch to some of the petri dishes. Keep those in a dark warm (85-90ish area) to cook for a few days and go back to check them.
Now, right now is the time to snag some pictures of what Staphylococcus looks like in a petri dish so you can identify it. Print those pictures out, or memorize them. Staph is common on everyone, and it's a gram positive bacteria which makes it susceptible to penicillin. If you're a nerd like me, you'll also have a microscope and gram stain kit handy to verify. At any rate, identify your staph cultures, and start sterilizing some toothpicks, or if you've got it, make some tiny wire "loops" to sterilize. (Wire loops are easier since you can sterilize them with any non-sooting flame.)
If you're a week into the process, you should have some pretty good stuff going on with the bread. If you see some mold growing that has a whiter "outside" with a blu-green "inside" that's a good candidate for your penicillium chrysogenum. It may have some orange droplets in the middle too. The problem is that a lot of your penicilliums can look similar and the wrong ones simply won't help you at all.
Now, take some choice cultures from a few different of the "cultures" you have growing in your bread (using the loop or sterile toothpick) and place a half dozen "wads" of it (doesn't need to be much larger than a pin head) on one side of your petri dish. Space them out so they pretty evenly cover half. Using a different sterile loop, take a small dab of the Staph and place it in a few places on the other half, mirroring the first.
Do this for any cultures you think might be penicillium chrysogenum. Stick the whole mess (should have at least half a dozen petri dishes) into your incubator area and let them grow.
Now, the penicillin is NOT the mold. Instead, it's what the mold "poops" into the medium. So you are not looking for mold that just takes over the entire dish. That doesn't tell you anything, so you do want to check these every 24 hours. What you're looking for is a place where the mold is growing, and in the space BETWEEN the mold and bacterial growth, you see the bacteria receding well before the mold reaches it. This is your penicillin producing mold.
Now, take some MORE bread, sterilize it, and KEEP IT STERILE. Introduce JUST some of the penicillium chrysogenum mold to the bread and allow that to grow (making sure it's kept covered/sterile) until it "eats up" the bread and turns into a powdery gunk in the bottom of the jar. That powdery gunk is penicillium chrysogenum spores. Again, being careful not to contaminate it, use a sterile screen or sieve to filter out just the spores into a sterile funnel, and pour into a sterile jar. Wear a respirator for this step, then ventilate the area afterwards. While penicillin mold spores are perfectly safe to eat, breathing them: not so much. Keep in mind they'll also be VERY light, so you need a NON ventilated area to coax them into the funnel/bottle.
NOW...
Now that you have isolated your emergency penicillium chrysogenum spores, when you find yourself in need of a penicillin dose, you're already too late. (Sorry.) The spores by themselves are useless. Again, the penicillin is in the poop. BEFORE the emergency comes, you want to take a small flask of sterilized broth (not chicken broth, though I'd imagine that would work too. You want something with citric acid (orange juice) and maybe even some sugar in it. Experiment here, because I haven't done much past this point yet.) Add a small amount of the spores (making sure to keep everything as sterile as humanly possible) and let that cook in your incubator for about a week. The more surface area the mold has to grow on, the better. (ie: Your flask can be a small jar laid on its side)
After a week's worth of growth, the broth itself is going to be filled with penicillin. The problem here, though, is we have NO idea what dosage it's at, and no way to test it. This is where I tend to get hung up. You can put a drip of it in a petri dish with bacteria and watch it kill it off, but it still doesn't tell me if we're looking at 5mg or 500mg.
This liquid can be frozen, then vacuum sealed and kept almost indefinitely (if kept frozen). It also tastes horrible. (Imagine how penicillin pills taste. Now imagine if you ground those up and drank them as tea.) You can try adding honey and water to it to dilute it, but it'll still taste like mold poop.
With a sick person, start with half an ounce in the morning to see if they react. If by noon they're still okay, raise it by half an ounce every 6 hours until you're up to 3 ounces. Continue to give 3 ounces every 6 hours. If no improvement is seen on the third day, raise the dosage to 5 ounces. If by the 6th day, still no improvement, go to 8 ounces. If that doesn't kill them, then the disease probably will. Get a priest.
Once the person has gotten better, you MUST KEEP GIVING THEM the dosage every 6 hours for 3 more days. If the illness recedes and you stop the dosage before it's dead, it will not only return but could have developed a resistance in the meantime.
Needless to say, you should ONLY attempt this in a SHTF situation. You have no way of knowing what the reaction to unprocessed penicillin will be, or how much of a dose you're giving the person (it will be different with every batch, too).
As a side-note, some of the isolated mold growing on wheat bread can also be eaten (the mold itself is harmless) for an absolute emergency need it now situation, but the dosage on that is even harder to measure. It can also be used in a bandage for an infected cut.
Needless to say, if you actually try this, and kill yourself, don't blame me. This should only be attempted in a situation where there's no lawyers left.
Penicillin is very strong against most gram positive bacteria (which are the most common, fortunately.) While it is considerably weaker against gram negative bacteria, in high enough doses it CAN work against them. If you're allergic to penicillin, make sure not to get hurt.
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