Allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) due to topical antibiotics is very common. Neomycin and bacitracin are in the top ten most common allergens to cause allergic contact dermatitis. These allergens ...

In 1948, the Food and Drug Administration approved an antibiotic medication based on the discovery—bacitracin, after “Bacillus” and “Tracey,” a misspelling of the patient’s name.

Bacitracin is a polypeptide antibiotic that is chemically unrelated to neomycin. It inhibits bacterial cell wall synthesis. It is produced by Bacillus subtilis (Gehrig & Warshaw, 2008). Bacitracin ...