Sir Alexander Fleming - The Gift of Penicillin
When an older brother, Tom, started a medical practice in London, several of the siblings relocated there, including 14-year-old Alexander. He attended Polytechnic. Brother Tom thought he would make a good businessman, so after graduation, Fleming worked for four years in a shipping office. When the Boer War began in 1900, he joined a regiment but never saw combat. The death of an uncle provided funds for Fleming to begin medical studies. He entered St. Mary's Medical School, London University. His choice of schools was based on St. Mary's having a water polo team, and his decision to quit the study of surgery for a career in bacteriology was because he would have to leave St. Mary's to become a surgeon. He received his degree in 1906. The department head of Inoculation Service wanted Fleming to join his rifle club, and created a position on his staff to encourage Fleming to stay at St. Mary's. Fleming remained there for the rest of his career.
Fleming's supervisor was Sir Almroth Wright. Wright believed, as did Fleming, there were substances in the human body that could be used to fight infection, and strengthening the immune system was key. Wright had received some samples from Paul Ehrlich, a German chemist-physician, who had developed a treatment for syphilis, salvarsan. Fleming conducted research on salvarsan and developed a private practice treating syphilis patients using the new methodology of intravenous injection.
Fleming married Sarah Marion McElroy in 1915. They had one son, who became a general medical practitioner.
Fleming served as a captain in the Army Medical Corps during World War I. Fleming demonstrated that chemical antiseptics were not as effective as the body's own defense systems.
After the war, Fleming returned to St. Mary's. He worked developing antiseptics and discovered lysozyme, which is found in nasal mucus and has a slight antibacterial effect.
In 1928, he was elected Professor of St. Mary's. It was also during 1928, that Fleming conducted experiments that would later focus attention on the properties of penicillin. He left a dirty culture plate where he had been growing staphylococcus bacteria while he went on a two-week holiday. In a serendipitous turn of events, the changing temperatures and a errant spore that landed in the dish produced a blue mold that filled the rest of the dish and created what
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