The Oldest Sugar-Free Candy Licorice

Licorice candy (Choo Choo Bar, Crows, Good Plenty, London drops, groids, Pontefract cakes. Snaps, Turkish Pepper) may not be as popular as it used to be, but is still available in confeetionery stores (Fig. 3.35). Sugarelly, a onee popular British soft drink, was also made of hcorice. The sweet taste is beyond doubt, but is it because of sugar  

Licorice still has medicinal nses becanse it is an expectorant, protects the mucus of the stomach and probably has some antiviral activity as well. Sometimes it is simply a sweetener in medical syraps. Its taste and health benefit are caused by the same family of compounds called triterpenoid saponins, mostly glycyrrhizinic acid, in which two molecules of glucuronic acid are ahached to a triterpenoid base compound through glycosidic bonds. Glycyrrhizinic acid is mostly present in the plant 

Step by testing the antibacterial effect of penicillin in humans. Ernst Boris Chain (1906-1979) solved the problem of large scale production of the compound. Penicillin proved its benefit in World War 11, by facilitating the prevention of bacterial infections among Allied troops. Before the 1940s, wound infections caused mat r more fatalities in wars than the wounds themselves. Fleming, Florey and Chain were awarded the 1945 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. 

Nowadays, antibiotics are primarily classified according to the mechanism of their action, with similarity of chemical structure as a secondary factor. Penicillin and its derivatives inhibit the formation of bacterial cell walls (Fig. 3.38). Cephalosporins have the same active mechanism. Other compounds are taken up into bacterial DNA to form unstable molecules (quinolones, metronidazole) or inhibit peptide synthesis (tetracychnes, aminoglycosides, macrolides). Some antibiotics (e.g. glycopeptides) exert a complex effect. 

There are some antibiotics that are specifically reserved to treat highly resistant pathogens. These nsnally have mnltiple mechanisms of action against pathogens. They should only be nsed sparingly, as their freqnent use would result in the development of strains that are resistant even to them. 

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