Fleming Dies: Penicillin's Discoverer Leaves a Legacy
Fleming discovered penicillin by accident in 1928 — came back from vacation, found mold killing the bacteria on a forgotten petri dish. He published it. Nobody much cared. It took Howard Florey and Ernst Chain twelve years to figure out how to manufacture it as medicine. The first batch went to a policeman named Albert Alexander who was dying from a scratch. It worked. Then they ran out and he died. By World War II, mass production had begun. Fleming, Florey, and Chain shared the 1945 Nobel Prize. Fleming got most of the credit and the myth. He was born in Ayrshire in 1881 and died in London on March 11, 1955. The petri dish he left uncovered is in a museum.
March 11, 1955
71 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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