[throwaway892238]

You don't need industrial machinery to produce penicillin. You can sterilize equipment a variety of ways, such as with horseshoe crab blood, fire, alcohol. Now, would it work well for 7 billion people? Hell no. I'm hoping the apocalypse knocks out a significant chunk of the population, and that at that point we can focus on sustainable, simple living, rather than industrialization.

[imchillyb]

> You don't need industrial machinery to produce penicillin.

Sooo. How are you going to grow enough of that, while /not growing/ any other type of fungus, mold, bacteria, etc...

There's a reason modern medicine utilizes things like cleanrooms and laboratories, instead of y'know a farm and a barn.

[throwaway892238]

I can build you a sanitized laboratory with 16th century equipment. That's the great thing about how much knowledge we have now: we can do more with fewer things.