Several important patent medicines and many prescriptions employ a potent antibiotic whose official name is bacitracin. It gained that title because of a series of circumstances centering on a seven-year-old girl.
In June, 1943, little Margaret Tracy was hit by a truck. An infection developed and New York doctors were puzzled by how her body responded to it. Eventually, an odd micro-organism was isolated from Margaret’s wound. Cultured and tested, the new strain proved to be the source of a powerful germ-inhibiting substance. Because the bacteria-killing stuff came from little Miss Tracy’s leg, it was named ‘bacitracin’ in her honor.