Rediscovering Penicillin

In 1929 Fleming published his findings to a British Journal of Experimental Pathology, referencing that penicillin had potential of therapeutic benefits. Dr. Fleming was never able to purify his samples of penicillin, but he became the first person to publish the news of its germ-killing power. Howard Florey, Ernst Chain and Norman Heatley expanded on Fleming 's work in 1938, at Oxford University.

In September of 1928, a rushed bacteriologist Dr. Alexander Fleming let his lab at St. Mary’s Hospital, as usual, a mess on his way to a month vacation. Little did he know he had just spawned one of the most crucial inventions of all time. Upon his return to his laboratory he found mold had grown in the petri dishes he had left out. One of whom contained the rare spore Penicillium notatum that had probably wafted up into his lab through the air currents from the down-stairs mycology lab. Dr. Fleming noticed a ring around the mold, and it was 100% bacteria free! Curiosity urged him onward, as he grew a pure culture of the mold and discover that it killed a great deal of disease-causing bacteria. He would go on to name the substance penicillin.

named Dr. Amalia Koutsouri-Vourekas. During World War One, Alexander Fleming joined the Army Medical Corps and while serving, Fleming had noticed that the substances they were using at the time for antibiotics did more harm to the patients than it helped them. During his time in the military, after discovering how harmful the current antibiotics were, he got to work and made many innovations to them, making them safer and do more good. At the time, these innovations were seen as great things but soon would be overseen with his later discovery.

Fleming’s work was later expanded by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain and their team at Oxford University beginning in 1938, about ten years after Fleming’s first findings. They were able to transform penicillin as a curiosity in the lab and antiseptic to the life-saving antibiotic we know it as today. Howard Florey was deemed at an early age by his older sister who was a medical student at the time to be the next “Pasteur” due to his interest in pursuing medical research. Florey then achieved much as a student at the University of Adelaide, which at that time didn’t specialize in researchers, but in preparing general practitioners. Howard then went on to receive the Rhodes Scholarship to study in England at Oxford University. He used this opportunity as a springboard to going on to study in America and return back to England to Oxford University achieve much greatness. In 1938, he became the director of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology. After a few years of taking on a variety of experiments and gathering a team of trusted professionals, he spearheaded work on the self-proclaimed “Penicillin Project” after coming across and sifting

In this reading there was many very interesting facts about penicillin. Penicillin was a breakthrough in the medical field in the 20th century. The scientist Alexander Fleming had accidentally spilled a vile of bacteria on to a plate of bacteria to his benefit he found that is had stopped the growth of bacteria. This accidental discover has benefited everyone in the world because we have to get these shots if we are infected, plus it saved many life’s in world war II. However, Penicillin is considered an antibiotic chemical that is created by living organism to stop the growth of bacteria and prevent an illness if people were to come into contact with this problem. Since the discovery and massive stock piling of this cure it has become less

What Fleming was particularly interested in was the concept that even though people do obtain bacterial infections at times, majority of the time the human body prevents bacterial infections from affecting the body. During this researching period, Fleming graduated St. Mary’s Medical School once again with a Bachelor of Bacteriology at the same time receiving the gold medal for the top student (Maurois, 1956). In 1914 Fleming concluded his research under Almroth Wright’s guidance and unknowingly continued his journey on to becoming the man with the answer to the biggest human health issue at the time (Maurois, 1956)

Penicillin is an antibiotic medicine used to treat harmful bacteria and infections inside and outside of your body. Alexander Fleming, a bacteriologist, discovered it in the early 1900s. As stated by Brittany Connors on page 125 of “The Discovery of Penicillin: The True Story”, “Fleming often admitted that he discovered Penicillin by accident, and that all of the work was done by nature.” Although the finding of this cure may have been an accident, it’s use case has helped save many lives and keep many from sickness. There were numerous events that led to the discovery and development of this treatment such as Fleming’s messy laboratory, Florey’s realization of the medical potential of Penicillin, and Moyer’s success in raising the production yield.

Jesse Lane says in Not-So-Dumb Luck, When he came back, he noticed that every dish he had left out in the open was covered in mold.” She later says, “The dish that had caught Fleming’s eye contained a staphylococci culture- in other words, it was chock full of bacteria- and while Fleming had been away, the culture had also grown a tuft of yellow-green mold.” And that was the beginning revolutionary history of penicillin. Later in the paragraph the author says, “After some experimentation, he found that the ring was bacteria free, and that the mold was a rare spore called Penicillium notatum,” Where the name penicillin comes from ”which had wafted on air currents into his lab from another floor.” If he hadn’t gone on vacation and left his lab a mess then penicillin wouldn’t be with us today saving lives.Thirdly, penicillin is a widely used medicine that kills bacteria and treats

“Over 50,000,000 peoples lives have been saved by the drug penicillin” (Sim). Today Penicillin and other antibiotics are crucial in the lives of people. One bad thing about penicillin is approximately 11.5% of the population is allergic to it so the diseases they receive that have to be healed by penicillin or other antibiotics might not heal as fast or maybe even kill them. Another negative aspect to Penicillin is it weakens the immune system(Cooper). Most of the body survives off of friendly bacteria and if antibiotics kill bacteria in large numbers, then it kind of defeats the purpose. Penicillin is used to treat many diseases and viruses that can be deadly if medicine was not applied, and they are easily accessible. After the discovery and processing of Penicillin, it was often described as the “Miracle Drug” and that is exactly what it was. Prior to the foundation of Penicillin, death was very common due to diseases that we think are no

Fleming began to sort through petri dishes containing colonies of Staphylococcus, bacteria that cause boils, sore throats and abscesses. He noticed something unusual on one dish. It was dotted with colonies, except for one area where a blob of mold was growing. The zone immediately around the mold—later identified as a rare strain of Penicillium notatum—was clear, as if the mold had secreted something that inhibited bacterial growth (American Chemical Society). The first introduction of penicillin began in the 1940’s, it was recognized as one of the greatest advances in therapeutic medicine. The discovery was made in the United Kingdom but because of World War II, the United States developed a large production of the drug. By 1937, an important pain killer known as methadone was introduced. Morphine, the most active substance in opium, is a very powerful painkiller that hooked many US Civil War soldiers (Drug Free World). They were wanting to find a painkiller that was less addictive to use for surgery and that’s why they invented

In 1928 Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin when he left a plate of staphylococcus uncovered on a plate for two weeks. He was a chemist studying enzyme lysozyme, and rarely kept his laboratory clean. Instead of what one would assume would happen if one left a deadly disease unattended, penicillium notatum, similar to the mold on bready, had killed a large portion of the disease the bacteria. Fleming drew the conclusion that penicillin notatum could potentially treat bacterial infections by somehow killing off the bacteria, which led to testing and eventually mass-marketing of the product penicillin. (American Chemical Society, Alexander Fleming Discovery and

“The greatest contribution medical science ever made to humanity.” (as cited in Alexander Fleming, Encyclopedia of World Biography 1998, P. 1) Alexander Fleming had many great accomplishments in life. He made important contributions to the medical field by doing research on Lysozyme and by discovering penicillin (Alexander Fleming, 1998). The discoveries he made changed the medical field.

The Penicillin, what most people use, is one of the most popular medicines used for people that are sick or are old. And it was discovered on accident by a bacteriologist named Alexander Fleming. Because of what led to discovery also led to the early development and later development of his accident invention.

Antibiotics were a huge deal 70 years ago at the advent of penicillin, what started it all. Since 1935, more than 150 antibiotics of various classes have been discovered – each adding to the stability of doctors being able to cure their patients. Physicians saw unprecedented rates of survival for previously almost entirely lethal infections.

Penicillin brought about the biggest search in medical history. It was reasoned that if there was one antibiotic in nature, there must be many more, and there were.