In the early decades of the 20th century, the first pharmacologic agents used, unsuccessfully, against TB were compounds such as gold and calcium .Later, in 1930s, the new sulfa drugs were tested, but also found to be of no benefit. It was the discovery of streptomycin by soil biologist Selman Waksman in 1944 that truly offered a magic bullet for TB. Waksman, a Ukrainian immigrant working in New Jersey with fungal products that he termed “antibiotics,” found relatively effective against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In 1948 came the results of a British trial that has since served as a model for drug study design: a randomized, controlled trial, it demonstrated a clear benefit, though not complete efficacy, of streptomycin over no treatment. Waksman went on to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work with streptomycin in 1952.

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