Fleming Discovers Penicillin
In September 1928, Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming returned from holiday to his St Mary's Hospital laboratory and noticed that a Penicillium notatum mould had contaminated one of his Staphylococcus culture plates and was killing the surrounding bacteria. Fleming published his observations in 1929, calling the active substance 'penicillin', but was unable to stabilise the compound. Howard Florey and Ernst Chain at Oxford purified and tested penicillin as a clinical antibiotic in 1940-41, producing it in mass quantities in the US from 1943. Penicillin transformed medicine: bacterial infections that had killed millions - pneumonia, septicaemia, syphilis, wound infections - became treatable. Fleming, Florey, and Chain shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
- Year: 1928 CE
- Category: Scientific
