Alexander Fleming
Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), Scottish bacteriologist, who discovered penicillin. Fleming came from a poor family and worked in London as a shipping clerk when his father died. However, he won a scholarship to study medicine at London University and obtained his degree in 1908. He became interested in germs and in 1928 was appointed professor of bacteriology. In the same year, during the course of his re-searches, he left a dish of staphylococcus bacteria uncovered and this became contaminated by a mould. Fleming noticed that the germs around each area of mould had dissolved. He identified the mould as Peni-cillium notatum and called the substance that killed the germs penicillin. He also found that penicillin destroyed some bacteria but not others. During World War II, when new drugs were needed to treat wounded soldiers, penicillin was isolated by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain and became the first effective antibiotic. For his work Fleming was knighted in 1944 and received the Nobel Prize in 1945.
