PENICILLIN:WHO INVENTED PENICILLIN HOW PENICILLIN WAS DEVELOPED WHO CREATED AND MADE PENICILLIN FLOREY FLEMING CHAIN

How A Cantaloupe in Peoria Led to a Fruitful Discovery.The Manufacture of Penicillin Had More Twists and Turns Than A Six Flags Roller Coaster

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In March,1942, a 31 year old woman, Anne Miller,lay in a New Haven,CT hospital dying of blood poisoning subsequent to a miscarriage. Her temperature swung between 103 and 106 for weeks.Nothing was able to control the strepococcus that had infected her blood.Her doctor felt like he was running out of options when he recalled a conversation with another doctor who spoke of work on an almost unknown substance called penicillin.













That substance, a bacteria killer, seemed the woman's last chance.A round of phone calls resulted in getting some of the precious penicillin for the woman.Within one day, the woman who had high fever for weeks had none.

Anne Miller, First Patient Who Was Saved by Penicillin


"Although Sir Alexander Fleming, the Scottish biologist, was the first to recognize the therapeutic potential of penicillin through a chance discovery at St. Mary's Hospital in London in 1928, nearly a dozen years passed before scientists fully appreciated its significance and were able to produce it for experimental use in humans. Largely forgotten, it came to the fore only when researchers picked up on it again at Oxford University at the outbreak of World War II."

"Before Mrs. Miller's doctors succeeded in saving her life, only a few experiments had been conducted with penicillin in mice and people, with results mixed and largely disheartening".




Eric Lax unfolds the amazing story of the discovery and development of penicillin in his book "The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat". The publisher is Henry Holt and Company.


Penicillin easily qualifies as a wonder drug, having saved countless millions from a horrible fate. Steven Speilberg, in scouting for movie material would be hard pressed to find a more fascinating assortment of characters, action and human interest. Everything from an Einstein look alike Jewish refugee from the Nazis to a young woman saved at the last minute by the miracle drug to the search for ways to manufacture penicillin that led to a cantaloupe in Peoria, Illinois.

Fun Facts About Fungi

From that first serendipitous moment when Alexander Fleming noticed that a mold in his lab could stop bacterial growth the story of penicillin has taken more twists and turns then a roller coaster.


Alexander Fleming noted that something in a mold growing on a dish in his lab could kill bacteria but he wasn't able to isolate what that "something" was. He stopped working on the problem. Several people tried to isolate the antibacterial agent but penicillin languished until others came along and did the heavy lifting.


It would be left to a number of scientists including a refugee from the Nazis who resembled Einstein,named Ernst Chain , an Oxford scientist named Howard Florey and Norman Heatley to assemble the puzzle pieces and make penicillin a life saver.

Ernst Boris Chain

Howard Florey

Rubbing Mold In Their Coats To Escape the Nazis

The Second World War gave a new impetus to the search for penicillin. Chain had been driven to England by the war. The scientists at Oxford who worked on the problem were concerned about an imminent German invasion. As a result they prepared to destroy their research lest it fall into enemy hands but they had a plan to save Penicillin. They rubbed Penicillin mold spores in their clothes so that those who might escape could carry it to a new land and proceed. Luckily, they never had to flee England but the search for methods of mass production led to America and a lab in Peoria,Illinois. U.S. Army Transport Command flew mold strain samples from all over the world to a laboratory in Peoria in a search for the best growth medium for penicillin. Amazingly it turned out that the mold strain that was most powerful was on a cantaloupe from a market in Peoria.