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Discovery pf penicillin
Posted Date: 10 May 2008 Resource Type: Articles/Knowledge Sharing Category: General
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Posted By: famseena Member Level: Bronze
Rating:  Points: 4
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Discovery of
PENICILLIN
Alexander was born as the youngest son of a Scottish farmer in Ayrshire in 1861. When he had just completed his high school studies, his family suffered severe economic reverses and his parents could not finance his further studies. So, at the age of1 16, young Alexander took a job of a shipping clerk. Four years passed like that. The young man, while still dreaming about higher secondary education, had almost begun to accept his fate as a nondescript clerk.
Then fate intervened. A rich relative passed away and left some money as a legacy to young Alex. This enabled him to resign his humdrum job and to continue his studies. He chose to study medicine and wished to become a doctor. He completed his medical studies in 1906.
But instead of starting a lucrative medical practice, he took up a far less financially rewarding a job as a research fellow in bacteriology and worked under the guidance of Professor Wright. Wright had already made a name in research as the discoverer of a vaccine for the dreaded disease typhoid. Alexander worked with Wright for 8 years. During the First World War, Wright and his young assistant joined the army medical service and helped sick and wounded soldiers.
A MAGIC MOMENT
The year was 1928 .Alexander was now a professor at the University of London. He worked in an ill-equipped laboratory in St.Mary’s hospital. One day, he was cultivating in Petri dishes some common staphylococcus germs which cause boils and other infections. One Petri dish happened to be contaminated with some moulds which usually grow upon moist bread. These bluish moulds were called the “housewife’s nuisance”. One such mould had developed in the dish. To his great excitement, the young medical researcher found that around the mould there was a circular zone free from germs. The mould or some active principle in it had killed the germs!
The above is the story of the discovery of penicillin! The young doctor’s full name is Alexander Fleming. His discovery saved the lives of millions of people in course of time. It also led to the discovery, of a whole lot of other antibiotics such as streptomycin. This was great forward step in the history of medicine.
About his discovery, Dr Fleming remarked later: “there are thousands of different bacteria. The chance that put the right mould in the right spot at the right time was like winning the Irish sweep”. But this was an-epoch-making piece of good luck for mankind!
Fortune favours the prepared mind!
The discovery of penicillin was a chance discovery. But here we must remember the sage words of another great scientist, Louis Pasteur, who said that “chance favours the prepared mind”. You see, Fleming’s mind was a prepared mind! He was looking for something that could kill germs effectively. In fact, he had already made some discoveries in this regard earlier. That is another story, the story of a common cold!
Another magic moment!
Six years prior to his discovery of penicillin, fate presented Fleming with his first magic moment in 1922. Fleming was studying microbes. He had a very severe cold. Out of curiosity, Fleming placed a few drops of his nasal mucus upon his microbe cultures. He found that the microbes were killed! He concluded that some natural body secretion could kill some germs. He thought that the secretion contained some enzymes which he called lysozomes. But the killing power was feeble; he could neither isolate the enzyme nor produce it in large enough quantifies for any practical use. But idea remained in his mind that natural secretions from living systems could have antibacterial action. It was this idea which helped him to focus on the antibacterial activity of the mould, penicillium notatum which grows on moist bread under dark and damp conditions. As you can guess, the antibiotic got its name penicillin from the name of the mould.
Tailpiece
1) When he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1945, Fleming said: “I didn’t do anything! Nature makes penicillin, I just found it!”
2) In 1941, two British chemists, H. Florey (who was in fact born in Adelaide, Australia) and E. B. Chain (born in Berlin, Germany!) isolated penicillin the pure state and also developed a practical method to manufacture the drug. Thus, the new wonder drug became available to humanity at large. They shared the Nobel Prize with Fleming in 1945.
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