State founder holds French here, confining infected -- in need of this? (10)
I believe the answer is:
penicillin
'need of this?' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't see how one could define the other.
'state founder holds french here confining infected in' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'state' could be 'ill' (ill is a kind of state) and 'ill' is present in the answer.
'in' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for penicillin that I've seen before include "17" , "Common antibiotic" .)