During and shortly following World War II, new "miracle drugs" revolutionized the medical treatment of infections and gave life and hope to millions. The new drugs included several types of substances found to have antibacterial and antiviral properties. One of these classes of drugs was the tetracyclines, a family of antibiotics similar to penicillin and shown to be both nontoxic and effective against a wide range of infections.

Aureomycin, the first of the tetracyclines, was discovered in 1948 by American botanist Benjamin Minge Duggar (1872-1956) at the age of 76. Duggar had graduated from the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College (Mississippi State College) and studied at Alabama's Polytechnic Institute and Harvard University. He became professor of botany at University of Missouri and later at Washington University and Missouri Botanical Garden. He did pioneering research on the tobacco mosaic virus and became widely known for his work with molds and fungi...