,000 different soil microbes before they isolated streptomycin in 1943. Streptomycin was what they were looking for: It destroyed the tubercle bacillus and was safe enough to test in humans. Subsequent clinical trials proved that streptomycin cured several types of tuberculosis and that it was safe enough to prescribe for a variety of gram-negative bacterial infections. Even after sixty years, streptomycin continues to be used in the battle against tuberculosis and other life-threatening infections. Waksman died on August 16, 1973, and is buried in a churchyard in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.