This document provides a summary of 10 important drugs that were discovered by accident. It describes how each drug was initially developed for another purpose but was later found to have unexpected medical benefits. The drugs discussed include Prontosil (the first antibiotic), Mustine (developed from mustard gas for cancer treatment), nitrous oxide (originally used as laughing gas), Cisplatin (developed for experiments but used for cancer chemotherapy), Warfarin (originally a pesticide now used as a blood thinner), the smallpox vaccine (initially used cowpox virus instead of smallpox), botulinum toxin (used for medical issues after being found in spoiled meat), Valium (developed from a chemical dye), pen

1. 10 Important Drugs Discovered by Accident
Some of medicines greatest discoveries have come about quite by accident. The world of
chemistry is a difficult place and the chemist will take any break he or she can get. Everything
from the cure of one of the world's most terrible diseases to the way we pay to look has come
about in an off-road kind of way. In many cases, these discoveries were made just in time. So
kick back, pop a valium, and enjoy the Top Ten Important Drugs Discovered by Accident List,
then let us know what your favorite prescription drug is and why! Someone on our staff is partial
to Xanex. The rest of us are clean as your grandma's scalp.
Prontosil
Chemistry student Paul Gelmo first reported the synthesis of Prontosil in 1909. While he knew
how to break it down and make it pretty, he had no idea it had medical value and would one day
be used to help cure a U.S. President's son. It was not until 22 years later, when Bayer chemists
spent five long years testing thousand upon thousands of compounds related to AZO dyes that its
medicinal use as an antibiotic was realized. While it was used and gained notoriety in treating
and curing Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. of a streptococcal throat infection that was so bad, the
white house medical staff was contemplating a risky surgical procedure, and was heralded in the

2. newspapers as a breakthrough in the first sulfonamide antibacterial chemotherapy treatment, it
was not a prosperous drug for Bayer. Instead, it opened the door for a new era of sulfa drugs.
Mustine
Now this is a first. You always hear about how the brave veterans that fought our wars were
rewarded with posttraumatic stress syndrome or by getting some devastating form of cancer from
chemical warfare. Well now, the situation is completely reversed! A chemical agent developed
for warfare has actually proven itself worthy of existence. What is even more surprising is that it
is one of the Mustard gasses. A weapon that was once used to kill the enemy
is now used to kill another enemy…, CANCER! If this is not the coolest thing I have learned this
year, you can brush my teeth and call me smiley. Mustargen, (nitrogen mustard HN2) is a
blistering agent that was and is used to do just that. Dropped from a field artillery gun, usually
the split-tailed 155-millimeter howitzer, using the same kind of shell as white phosphorous
rounds that are designed to explode in the air above the target area, the Mustargen gas would
cover the enemy. It would blister and boil the skin, render the eyes useless, and infiltrate the
lungs, burning away the lining, which resulted in severe lung burns. It could be fatal and was
certainly debilitating.
Now scientists have found that in our infinite warlike wisdom, we also developed a weapon that
we can use with chemotherapy against an even worse evil, the big C. It infiltrates the cancer cells
and binds them, preventing them from splitting and eventually killing them. Ah, the little ironies
of life--enjoy them while you are young. When you get older, they become annoying regrets.

3. Nitrous Oxide
I think I would have liked to discover this gas myself. Nitrous Oxide was
first synthesized by chemist Joseph Priestley in 1772. It was used primarily at laughing gas
parties thrown by the rich and famous. It was not until years later that anyone benefited from its
anesthetic qualities. This laughing gas was first used medicinally in dental offices and clinics and
it is still used by dentists worldwide today. While it is not strong enough to play an operating
theater solo, it is given before and sometimes with ether to knock out a patient for surgery or
other procedure. This discovery is a gas from the life of the party to the sleep on the operating
table, man--what a ride!
Cisplatin
This remarkable and revolutionary drug, which can form irreversible cross-links to bases in
DNA, changed the way cancer is treated. It is most commonly used as a
chemotherapy drug and attacks solid malignancies. Its ability to cross-link DNA allows it to trick
the bad cells into thinking they need repair. The bad cells release a chemical process that is
supposed to repair them but it cannot so it does the only other thing it can, it eliminates the cell it
thinks is damaged and can't be repaired. In essence, the cancerous cells kill themselves. It is an
amazing drug and the news gets even better. Scientists have discovered that if you use Cisplatin
in conjunction with CV247 it decreases the severity of the very damaging side effects by 80%.

4. Cisplatin was first identified in 1845, at that time it was called Peyrone’s salt and was originally
developed for molecular theory experiments. In the mid-sixties, Cisplatin’s antitumor activity
was revealed, and it has served as the gold standard against which newer antitumor drugs are
compared. Cisplatin had a big role in helping multiple Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong
to fight testicular cancer.
Warfarin
It sounds like something that would cause bloodshed (war-fare-in) but it is actually just the
opposite. Warfarin is used to clot blood and to prevent blood clots from moving. It is the most
widely used anticoagulant in North America--unless of course, you happen to be a rat or a
mouse. Warfarin was originally developed as a pesticide against rodents. In fact, it is still on the
market for just that, even though other pesticides that are more effective have been developed.
Smallpox Vaccine
Smallpox killed more than 300 million people and that is just in the 20th century. God only
knows how many the killer disease took throughout the course of history. There is one thing that
we do know, when the vaccine for smallpox was created, we got it wrong. At first, we vaccinated
ourselves with the smallpox disease itself. Women would collect the scabs from the sores, grind
them into powder, and then blow them up the noses of people who wanted vaccination. The
person would get sick for a week to ten days and then get better, never getting the full-blown
disease. However, it would kill many people. The percentage was much lower than the rampant
spread of the disease but people were dying by one in 50. Someone finally realized that anyone
that worked around cows, had exposure to cowpox, which is a much milder form of chickenpox,

5. would be immune to chickenpox, and never suffer from it. That is when we wised up and started
vaccinating with cowpox instead, bringing the number of deaths way down to almost zero.
Today we enjoy total eradication of chickenpox with the exception of two known samples kept
in heavily secured areas for study and protection, one in the USA and another in Russia.
Botulinum Toxin
This was discovered in the fat of spoiled pork and called botulism by the physician who figured
out a medicinal use for it. Weirdly enough, in the 1960's it was
used to correct cross-eyed syndrome. People whose eyes did not line up properly receive
adjustments with this substance. It wasn't until the late 80's that Botox became useful in facial
twitches. It does not take a genius to figure out what happened next. A plastic surgeon in
Hollywood used it to fix something on someone's face that was not wrong to begin with for an
extraordinary amount of money and the rest, as they say…, is history! Anything that can smooth
out wrinkles is bound to be popular in our vain society.
Valium
Benzodiazepines came out in the 1950's and their uses were discovered quite by accident. During
testing being done on a chemical dye initially synthetized for other purpose, it was revealed that
it would have the hypnotic, muscle relaxing effects that we enjoy today. It was not long before
valium was developed as well. Finally, after so many years of developing all those boring
antibiotics and life saving crap, someone finally discovered something cool. At first, the public
was crazy about it. It did not take long for those breaks to squall on the road, let me tell you. That
old; “if it is too good to be true it probably still is true but it must be bad for you” feeling came
over everyone except of course, the housewives of the day, and everyone started griping. Still,
where would the stressed out alcoholic turn if he did not have valium? The corner bar would be
my guess.

6. Penicillin
It was very serendipitous indeed, in the morning of Friday, September 28, 1928
when Dr. Alexander Fleming discovered he had accidentally left the lid off a petri dish with
staphylococcus in it. What a wonderful discovery it was when he noticed the bluish mold
growing inside and the dying, inhibited ring of staphylococcus growth. Penicillin is discovered!
After many years of trying to produce it in mass quantities and figuring out how to use it, it
became readily available just before the breakout of war. By 1944, the U.S. had produced 2.3
million doses of penicillin. It is estimated that penicillin saved some 15% of amputations from
taking place during WWII.
Viagra
Almost anyone who has been within fifty feet of a pharmacy knows who Pfizer is. Just ask
anyone and he or she will tell you, "They are the guys that make the boner pills, right?" Correct!
However, that is not what they were attempting to do. They were
trying to up with something to treat hypertension and a heart disease known as ischaemic heart
disease. It was supposed to relax the smooth muscle so that the right side of the heart would not
have to work as hard. Well, it relaxed smooth muscle all right. It relaxed the smooth muscle of
the penis, allowing the chambers to fill up with blood and become hard as a rock.
Now if they could come up with something that increased my pecker's IQ, maybe it would make
better decisions for me.