| Alexander Fleming was born near Darvel in Ayrshire, | | | | administer salvarsan by the new technique of |
| Scotland in 1881, a few weeks after Sheriff Pat | | | | intravenous injection. He soon developed such a busy |
| Garrett killed his outlaw friend Billy the Kid in a house | | | | practice he got the nickname "Private 606." |
| in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. He was the seventh of | | | | In 1914, an assassin gunned down Archduke Francis |
| eight children who grew up on a large isolated farm, | | | | Ferdinand in Sarajevo, and started the First World |
| and who moved to London after the death of their | | | | War. Fleming convinced his staff to go to France and |
| father. His older brother Tom had a medical practice | | | | set up a battlefield hospital laboratory. He was |
| near Regent Street and apparently encouraged him | | | | horrified by the vast numbers of soldiers who died |
| to go to the nearby Polytechnic School and enter | | | | from simple infections caused by exploding shells and |
| business. He spent four years in a shipping office, but | | | | became convinced that there must be another |
| eventually became bored and decided to use his | | | | chemical like salvarsan that could fight microbe |
| qualifications to study medicine. He had a choice of | | | | infection. When the war ended he returned to St. |
| many medical schools in the area and only chose St. | | | | Mary's, determined to find an effective antiseptic. In |
| Mary's, because he had once played water polo | | | | 1921, he discovered an important bacteriolytic |
| against them. | | | | substance, which he named Lysozyme. After |
| In 1900, Fleming joined a Scottish regiment, intending | | | | returning from a holiday in 1928, he observed the |
| to fight in the Boer War, which was being fought | | | | dissolving of staphylococci by a Penicillium mould, and |
| between the British and the Afrikaners of the | | | | the rest of that stroy is well recorded history. |
| Orange Free State and the Transvaal. It is known | | | | It is less well known that the young Irish mycologist |
| that he never actually went to South Africa, but | | | | C. J. La Touche worked in the laboratory below |
| instead used the time to improve his skills in shooting, | | | | Fleming and that he isolated the powerful |
| swimming, and water polo. After the war ended, his | | | | penicillin-producing strain of mould (Penicillium notatum). |
| uncle died and left him 250 pounds which his brother | | | | Because his laboratory lacked a fume hood, the room |
| encouraged him to put toward the study of medicine. | | | | was contaminated with these spores, which probably |
| In 1905, he was pursuing a career in surgery, as | | | | wafted up to Fleming's laboratory. It is also of |
| Albert Einstein was trying to convince the world that | | | | interest that despite the myth, Fleming usually left his |
| light should be considered as a stream of tiny | | | | door open because it was actually almost impossible |
| particles. Meanwhile back in St. Mary's, the Captain of | | | | to open his window. He named the active substance |
| the Rifle Club was concerned that if Fleming became | | | | penicillin and found that it prevented growth of |
| a surgeon he would have to leave the hospital and | | | | staphylococci, even when diluted 800 times. In 1915, |
| his team would lose their best marksman. The | | | | he married Sarah Marion McElroy of Killala, Ireland, |
| Captain worked in the Inoculation Service of the | | | | who died in 1949. Their son is a general medical |
| hospital and he convinced Fleming to switch over to | | | | practitioner. Fleming married again in 1953, to Dr. |
| bacteriology in an effort to save his team. The | | | | Amalia Koutsouri-Voureka, a Greek colleague at St. |
| unusual career move meant that Fleming would stay | | | | Mary's. |
| at St. Mary's for the rest of his career. He qualified | | | | In 1929, Josef Stalin became dictator to the Soviet |
| with distinction in 1906 and began research under Sir | | | | Union. It was the same year that Fleming published a |
| Almroth Wright, who is remembered as a pioneer in | | | | report on penicillin and its potential uses in the British |
| vaccine therapy. | | | | Journal of Experimental Pathology. His paper |
| He was awarded a Gold Medal in Bacteriology in 1908, | | | | apparently raised little interest. He worked with the |
| and became a Fellow of the Royal College of | | | | mould for some time, but found out that refining the |
| Surgeons in 1909, the same year that the German | | | | active substance was a difficult process better suited |
| chemist Paul Ehrlich developed a chemical treatment | | | | to chemists. The work of purification was taken over |
| for syphilis. Erlich had tried hundreds of compounds, | | | | by a team of chemists and mould specialists, but the |
| and the six hundred and sixth worked. It was named | | | | research was terminated when several of them died |
| salvarsan (meaning "that which saves by arsenic"). | | | | or relocated. The battlefield infections of World War |
| The only previous treatments for this disease had | | | | II revitalised interest in penicillin and the scientists |
| been so toxic that they often killed the patient. | | | | Howard Florey and Ernst Chain eventually purified the |
| Fleming became one very few physicians to | | | | compound. |