Fleming discovered the world’s first antibiotic after returning to his laboratory from a family holiday. He found that a petri dish containing staphylococci bacteria had been contaminated with an unidentified fungus. The bacteria around the fungus had been destroyed, whereas bacteria that were further away survived. He allegedly remarked ‘that’s funny’ and began investigating the fungus.
Over time Fleming identified that the fungus came from the genus penicillium, and laboratory tests indicated that it could be used to destroy a variety of disease-causing bacteria. However, despite his best efforts he was never able to cultivate the fungus in any significant quantity or isolate the active ingredient. The work of subsequent scientists was therefore vital to the development of the antibiotic, although without Fleming there would have been no fungus to investigate.
Fleming originally referred to his discovery as ‘mould juice’ and it initially met with little attention or enthusiasm from the medical establishment. This changed in the early 1940s when research by Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford raised the profile of the drug. Their developments led to its mass-production to treat Allied casualties in the Second World War.
Fleming was very modest about his contribution to the development of penicillin, and often referred to the ‘Fleming myth’ surrounding the drug. However, as the first person to identify the antibiotic properties of the active substance he earned the right to name it.
