Sir Alexander Fleming (1881–1955) was a Scottish bacteriologist and the discoverer of penicillin on bacteria in 1928. Twelve years later, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain of the William Dunn School of Pathology-Oxford established its therapeutic use as an antibiotic. The three won the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Born in Lochfield Farm, Darvel, Ayrshire, Fleming was educated in Kilmarnock. He worked as a shipping clerk in London for five years before embarking on a brilliant medical studentship, qualifying as a specialist surgeon at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington (1909.) He led Almroth Wright’s bacteriological laboratory there.
Fleming was the first to use anti-typhoid vaccines on human beings and pioneered salvarsan’s use against syphilis. During World War I, he served as a medical officer in France. After the war, Fleming continued researching antibiotics. In 1922, while trying unsuccessfully to isolate the organism responsible for the common cold, he discovered lysozyme, an enzyme in tears and mucus that kills some bacteria without harming normal tissues. While this was not an essential antibiotic in itself, as most of the bacteria killed were non-pathogenic, it inspired Fleming’s search for other antibacterial substances.
In 1928, Fleming accidentally exposed a staphylococci culture and noticed a curious mold, penicillin, which he found to have unsurpassed antibiotic powers. Many researchers attempted to extract penicillin for medical use but were unsuccessful. Fleming waited for 11 years before Florey and Chain perfected a method of producing the volatile drug. Fleming was appointed Professor of Bacteriology at London in 1938.
Fleming wrote many articles on bacteriology, immunology, and chemotherapy. Notable biographies include John Malkin’s Sir Alexander Fleming (1985,) Gwyn MacFarlane’s Alexander Fleming (1985,) André Maurois’s The Life of Sir Alexander Fleming (1959,) and John Rowland’s The Penicillin Man (1957.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Alexander Fleming
When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer, … But I guess that was exactly what I did.
—Alexander Fleming
If penicillin can cure those that are ill, Spanish sherry can bring the dead back to life.
—Alexander Fleming
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One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.
—Alexander Fleming
I have been trying to point out that in our lives chance may have an astonishing influence and, if I may offer advice to the young laboratory worker, it would be this—never neglect an extraordinary appearance or happening. It may be—usually is, in fact—a false alarm that leads to nothing, but may on the other hand be the clue provided by fate to lead you to some important advance.
—Alexander Fleming
It is the lone worker who makes the first advance in a subject: the details may be worked out by a team, but the prime idea is due to the enterprise, thought, and perception of an individual.
—Alexander Fleming
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