re: #197 The Vicious Babushka

Years ago, I read a short story where a guy makes a deal with Satan to send him back in time so that he can play the stock market or invest in railroads and automobiles but as soon as he steps into the past he gets an infection and realizes there is no antibiotics.

In the “Outlander” series, wherein a woman from the mid-20th century first visits, then goes back to live in, the 1700’s… the thing she’s most vehement about taking back with her is a bunch of pre-filled syringes full of penicillin. Then she demands that her 1760-husband build a special air-tight room in their house, buy her the best microscope available, and she sets out slices of bread in the room trying to cultivate more penicillin. She can only make enough for immediate-family emergencies, but it’s her absolute top priority project through all eight books. (her best future-advice for her Scottish farmer in-laws is to grow potatoes. She teaches them all the many ways to fry, mash, sauté, bake, how to sprout them in a glass, the 4th-grade potato battery project her 1960’s children had done, etc).