Who discovered penicillin. Madame Penicillin

He wrote about how in the USSR they tried to attribute almost all the great inventions of mankind, including the steam locomotive, incandescent lamp, hot air balloon, bicycle, etc., to Russian inventors. But in fairness, it must be said that in some cases such statements pursued purely practical goals, an example of which is the story with penicillin.

On September 13, 1929, at a meeting of the Medical Research Club at the University of London, a modest microbiologist at St. Maria Alexander Fleming reported on the therapeutic properties of mold. This day is considered to be the birthday of penicillin, but few people paid attention to Fleming’s report at that time. And there were good reasons for this. Mentions of the treatment of purulent diseases with mold were found in the works of Avicenna (11th century) and Philip von Hohenheim, known as Paracelsus (16th century), but the problem was how to isolate from mold the substance due to which its miraculous properties are manifested.

Three times, at Fleming’s request, biochemists began to purify the substance from foreign impurities, but were unsuccessful: the fragile molecule was destroyed, losing its properties. This problem was solved only in 1938 by a group of scientists at Oxford University, who received a grant of $5 thousand from the Rockefeller Foundation for research. This group was headed by Professor Howard Florey, but it is believed that its brain center was the talented biochemist, grandson of the Mogilev tailor Ernst Chain. However, some experts believe that success was achieved mainly thanks to the third member of the group, the remarkable designer Norman Heatley, who successfully used the latest lyophilization technologies of that time (evaporation at low temperatures). Convinced that the Oxford group had succeeded in purifying penicillin, Alexander Fleming exclaimed: “Yes, you managed to process my substance! These are the kind of chemist scientists I dreamed of working with in 1929.”

But the story of penicillin did not end there. There was no way to establish mass production of the drug in England, which was bombed every day. In the fall of 1941, Flory and Heatley went to America, where they proposed the technology for producing penicillin to the chairman of the US Medical Research Council, Alfred Richards. He immediately contacted President Roosevelt, who agreed to finance the program. The Americans approached the matter with their characteristic scale - the penicillin program in miniature was reminiscent of the Manhattan Project to create an atomic bomb. All work was strictly classified, leading scientists, designers and industrialists were involved in the case. As a result, the Americans managed to develop an effective technology for deep fermentation. The first plant, worth $200 million, was built at a rapid pace in less than a year. Following this, new factories were built in the USA and Canada. Penicillin production grew by leaps and bounds: June 1943 - 0.4 billion units, September - 1.8 billion, December - 9.2 billion, March 1944 - 40 billion units. Already in March 1945, penicillin appeared in American pharmacies.

Only when sensational news about healings began to arrive from the United States, and after them the drug itself appeared, did England come to their senses, discovering that the technology used for surface fermentation of mold not only did not produce a sufficient amount of penicillin, but in addition it was much more expensive than the American one. For the technology and equipment that the British asked to transfer to them, the Americans demanded huge amounts of money. I had to put my presumptuous overseas friends in their place. With the help of several publications in the press, the British proved to the world their priority in the invention of penicillin. To make it more convincing, the nimble reporters even added something in. There is still a story going around that the microbiologist Fleming was such a slob that his laboratory glassware started to turn on.
mold.

The USSR also tried to borrow this technology from the Americans, but was unsuccessful. Deputy People's Commissar of Health of the USSR A.G. Natradze said: “We sent a delegation abroad to purchase a license for the deep production of penicillin. They asked a very high price - $10 million. We consulted with the Minister of Foreign Trade A.I. Mikoyan and agreed to the purchase. Then they told us that they had made a mistake in the calculations and that the price would be $20 million. We again discussed the issue with the government and decided to pay this price as well. Then they said that they would not sell us a license even for $30 million.”

What could be done under these conditions? Follow the example of the British and prove your priority in the discovery of penicillin. First of all, we looked up the archives and found out that back in 1871, Russian doctors Vyacheslav Manassein and Alexey Polotebnov pointed out the medicinal properties of mold. In addition, Soviet newspapers were full of reports about the outstanding successes of the young microbiologist Zinaida Ermolyeva, who managed to produce a domestic analogue of penicillin called crustozin, and, as one would expect, it turned out much better than the American one. From these messages it was not difficult to understand that enemy spies had treacherously stolen the secret of the production of crustozin, because back home in the capitalist jungle, American scientists who suffer from inhuman exploitation would never have thought of this. Later, Veniamin Kaverin (his brother, virologist scientist Lev Zilber, was Ermolyeva’s husband) published the novel “Open Book,” which tells how the main character, whose prototype was Ermolyeva, despite the resistance of enemies and bureaucrats, gave the people a miracle cure.

This was not true. Using the support of Rosalia Zemlyachka (the fury of the red terror, as Solzhenitsyn called her, studied for some time at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lyon, and therefore considered herself an unsurpassed expert in medicine), Zinaida Ermolyeva, based on the fungus Penicillium crustosum, really established the production of crustosin, but the quality of domestic penicillin is significantly higher. inferior to the American one. In addition, Ermolyeva’s penicillin was produced by surface fermentation in glass “mattresses”. And although they were installed wherever possible, the volume of penicillin production in the USSR at the beginning of 1944 was approximately 1000 times less than in the USA.

It ended with the fact that the technology of deep fermentation, bypassing the Americans, was, as far as is known, privately purchased from Ernst Chain, after which the Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene of the Red Army, whose director was N. Kopylov, mastered this technology and put it into production. In 1945, after testing domestic penicillin, a large team led by Kopylov was awarded the Stalin Prize. After this, all talk about Russian-Soviet priority in the discovery of penicillin died down - Vyacheslav Manassein and Alexei Polotebnov were once again consigned to oblivion, Zinaida Ermolyeva was removed from the post of director of the Penicillin Institute, and her magic krustozin, thanks to which the builders of communism could live forever, was thrown away to the landfill.

Sometimes it happens that a great discovery is made by someone who constantly breaks the rules. Thousands of doctors who kept their workplaces clean could not do what the sloppy Alexander Fleming managed to do - discover the world's first antibiotic. And here’s what’s interesting: if he had kept himself clean, he wouldn’t have succeeded either.

Long ago, the great French chemist Claude-Louis Berthollet quite wittily remarked: “Dirt is a substance out of place.” Indeed, as soon as something is not where it should be, a mess immediately appears in the room. And since it is very inconvenient both for work and for normal life, everyone is taught from childhood that they should clean more often. Otherwise, the amount of substance that is not in its place will exceed that which knows its place.

Medical workers are especially intolerant of dirt. And they can be understood - a substance “out of place” quickly becomes a place of residence for various microorganisms. And they are very dangerous for the health of both patients and doctors themselves. Perhaps this is why most doctors are pathological cleaners. However, it is possible that in this profession there is a kind of artificial selection - the doctor who constantly “puts” substances in the wrong place loses clientele and the respect of colleagues and does not stay in the profession.

However, artificial selection, like its natural namesake, sometimes fails. It happens that a dirty doctor brings much more benefit to humanity than his neat colleagues. It is this funny paradox that we will talk about - how a doctor’s sloppiness once saved the lives of millions of people. However, let's talk about everything in order.

On August 6, 1881, in the Scottish city of Darvel, a boy was born into the Fleming family of farmers, who was named Alexander. Since childhood, the child was distinguished by curiosity and dragged everything he considered interesting from the street into the house. His parents, however, were not annoyed by this, but they were very upset that their offspring never put his trophies in a certain place. The young naturalist scattered dried insects, herbariums, minerals and other things more dangerous to health around the house. In a word, no matter how they tried to accustom Alexander to order and cleanliness, nothing came of it.

After some time, Fleming entered medical school at St. Mary's Hospital. There Alexander studied surgery and, having passed the exams, became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1906. While remaining employed in the pathology laboratory of Professor Almroth Wright at St Mary's Hospital, he received his MSc and BS degrees from the University of London in 1908. It should be noted that medical practice was not particularly interested in Fleming - he was much more attracted to research activities.

Alexander’s colleagues repeatedly noted that even in the laboratory he was simply monstrously sloppy. And it was dangerous to enter his office - reagents, medicines and instruments were scattered everywhere, and if you sat down on a chair, you could run into a scalpel or tweezers. Fleming was constantly reprimanded and reprimanded by his senior colleagues for keeping things out of place, but he didn't seem to mind that much.

When the First World War began, the young doctor went to the front in France. There, working in field hospitals, he began studying infections that penetrated wounds and caused serious consequences. And already at the beginning of 1915, Fleming presented a report that described the presence of types of microbes in wounds, some of which were not yet familiar to most bacteriologists. He was also able to find out that the use of antiseptics for several hours after injury did not completely destroy bacterial infections, although many surgeons believed so. Moreover, the most harmful microorganisms penetrated the wounds so deeply that it was impossible to destroy them with simple antiseptic treatment.

What should be done in such cases? Fleming did not particularly believe in the possibility of treating such infections with traditional medicines made from inorganic substances - his pre-war studies of therapy for syphilis showed that these methods were very unreliable. However, Alexander was carried away by the ideas of his boss, Professor Wright, who considered the use of antiseptics to be a dead end, since they weaken the protective properties of the body itself. But if you receive drugs that will stimulate the immune system, the patient will be able to destroy his “offenders” himself.

Developing the idea of his colleague, Fleming suggested that the human body itself must contain substances that kill microbes (it should be noted that they didn’t really know anything about antibodies at that time; they were isolated only in 1939). He was able to confirm his hypothesis experimentally only after the war using the “slide cell” technique. The technique made it easy to show that when microbes enter the blood, leukocytes have a very strong bactericidal effect, and when antiseptics are added, the effect is significantly reduced or even completely eliminated.

So, encouraged, Fleming began experimenting with various body fluids. He watered bacterial cultures with them and analyzed the results. In 1922, a scientist, having caught a cold, blew his nose as a joke into a Petri dish where a bacterial culture was growing Micrococcuslysodeicticus. However, this joke led to a discovery - all the microbes died, and Fleming managed to isolate the substance lysozyme, which has an antibacterial effect.

Fleming continued to study this natural antiseptic, but it soon became clear that lysozyme is harmless for most pathogenic bacteria. However, the scientist did not give up and repeated the experiments. The most interesting thing is that Alexander, working with cultures of the most dangerous microorganisms, did not change his habits at all. His desk was still littered with Petri dishes that had not been washed or sterilized for weeks. Colleagues were afraid to enter his office, but the slovenly doctor did not seem to be at all frightened by the prospect of contracting a serious illness.

And now, seven years later, luck smiled at the researcher again. In 1928, Fleming began researching the properties of staphylococci. At first, the work did not bring the expected results and the doctor decided to take a vacation at the end of the summer. However, he didn't even think about cleaning his laboratory. So, Fleming went on vacation without washing the Petri dishes, and when he returned on September 3, he noticed that mold fungi had appeared in one dish with the cultures, and the colonies of staphylococci present there had died, while the other colonies were normal.

Intrigued, Fleming showed the mushroom-contaminated cultures to his former assistant Merlin Price, who said: “That’s how you discovered lysozyme,” which should not be taken as admiration, but as a reprimand for sloppiness. Having identified the fungi, the scientist realized that the antibacterial substance was produced by a representative of the species Penicillium notatum, which got onto the staphylococcus culture completely by accident. A few months later, on March 7, 1929, Fleming isolated a mysterious antiseptic substance and named it penicillin. Thus began the era of antibiotics - drugs that suppress bacterial and fungal infections.

And what’s interesting is that before Fleming, many scientists came quite close to the discovery of such substances. In the USSR, for example, Georgy Frantsevich Gause was just one step away from receiving antibiotics. There have been breakthroughs on this front by scientists from the USA and many European countries. However, no one got their hands on this mysterious substance. This probably happened because they were all adherents of cleanliness and sterility, and mold Penicillium notatum I just couldn’t get into their laboratories. And in order to reveal the secret of penicillin, it took the dirty and slobby Alexander Fleming.

Penicillin- a legendary drug. It began the era of antibiotics, which saved millions of human lives. This remedy is still used in the treatment of certain infections. Today it is fashionable to criticize antibiotics, attributing to them all conceivable and inconceivable shortcomings. But with the advent of penicillin, the world changed forever and certainly became a better place.

Who discovered Penicillin?

At the beginning of the 20th century, a means to combat infections became a necessity. The population grew, especially in industrial cities. And with such crowding, any infection threatened a large-scale epidemic.

Scientists already knew a lot about bacteria, the causative agents of the most common and dangerous diseases were isolated and studied, and some drugs were used. But there was no truly effective medicine.

At the end of the 20s of the last century (1881 - 1955), he actively studied pathogenic microorganisms, including staphylococci - the cause of many diseases.

History of discovery

The literature, including fiction, colorfully describes that the Scottish scientist was careless and did not deactivate the bacterial cultures immediately after working with them. And one day he noticed that the growing mold had dissolved the colonies in one of the Petri dishes.

You need to understand that this was not ordinary mold, but brought from a neighboring laboratory. It turned out that it belongs to the genus Penicillium (penicillum). There were doubts about its variety, but experts determined that it was penicillium notatum.

Fleming began growing this fungus in bottles of nutrient broth and conducting tests. It turned out that even with strong dilution, this antiseptic is able to suppress the growth and reproduction of not only staphylococcus, but also other pathogenic cocci (gonococcus, pneumococcus), and diphtheria bacillus. At the same time, cholera virions, typhus and paratyphoid pathogens did not respond to the action of penicillium notatum.

But the main questions were how to isolate a pure substance that destroys bacteria, how to maintain its activity for a long time? - There was no answer to them. Fleming tried to use the broth topically - for treating purulent wounds, for instillation into the eyes and nose (for rhinitis). But massive research has reached a dead end.

In the 40s, attempts to isolate pure penicillin were continued by the so-called Oxford group of microbiologists. Howard Walter Florey and Ernest Chain obtained a powder that could be diluted and injected.

Research was spurred by the Second World War. In 1941, the Americans joined the research and invented a more effective technology for producing penicillin. This medicine was necessary at the fronts, where any wound and even just abrasion threatened blood poisoning and death.

The Soviet government asked the Allies to provide a new medicine, but received no response. Then the Institute of Experimental Medicine, headed by Z. V. Ermolyeva. Several dozen variants of the Penicillium fungus were studied and the most active one was isolated - Penicillium crustosum. In 1943, domestic “penicillin-crustosin” began to be produced on an industrial scale.

This drug turned out to be more effective than the American one. Flory himself visited Moscow to verify this. He, too, wanted to get the original culture of our antibiotic. He was not refused, but was given Penicillium notatum, already known in the West.

Modern concept of antibiotics

Antimicrobial drugs today are divided into many groups. According to the production method they are divided into:

Biosynthetic - natural - they are isolated from cultures of microorganisms;
Semi-synthetic - they are obtained by chemical modification of substances secreted by microorganisms.

The classification by chemical composition is widely used:

β-lactams - penicillin, cephalosporin, etc.;
Macrolides - erythromycin, etc.;
Tetracyclines and so on.

Antibiotics are also divided according to their spectrum of action: broad spectrum, narrow spectrum. By predominant effect:

bacteriostatic - stop bacterial division;
bactericidal - destroy adult forms of bacteria.

Modern penicillin and natural antibiotics

Today the ancestor of all antibiotics is called benzylpenicillin. This is a β-lactam natural bactericidal drug. In its pure form it does not have a wide spectrum of action. Some types of gram-negative bacteria, anaerobes, spirochetes and some other pathogens are sensitive to it.

Most of the “claims” that people now like to make about all antibiotics can be attributed to natural penicillins:

They often cause allergies - immediate and delayed reactions. Moreover, this applies to any products that contain penicillin, including cosmetics and food products.
The toxic effect of penicillins on the nervous system, mucous membranes (inflammation occurs), and kidneys has also been described.
When some microorganisms are suppressed, others can multiply enormously. This is how superinfections arise - for example,.
This medicine must be administered in injections - it is destroyed in the stomach. In addition, the drug is eliminated quickly, requiring frequent injections.
Many strains of microorganisms have or are developing resistance to its action. People who misuse the antibiotic are often to blame.

But it is important to understand that such (and a wider) list of undesirable effects of penicillins appeared thanks to their excellent study. All these disadvantages do not make this drug “poisonous” and do not cover up the obvious benefits that it still brings to patients.

Suffice it to say that all international medical organizations have recognized the possibility of treating pregnant women with penicillin.

To expand the spectrum of action of a natural antibiotic, it is combined with substances that destroy bacterial defenses - β-lactamase inhibitors (sulbactam, clavulonic acid, etc.). Long-acting forms have also been developed.

Modern semi-synthetic modifications help overcome the disadvantages of natural penicillin.

Antibiotics of the penicillin group

Natural penicillins:

benzylpenicillin (penicillin G);
phenoxymethylpenicillin (penicillin V);
benzathine benzylpenicillin;
benzylpenicillin procaine;
benzathine phenoxymethylpenicillin.

Semi-synthetic penicillins:

Extended spectrum of action -

Against Pseudomonas aeruginosa -

Ticarcillin;
Azlocillin;
Piperacillin;

Against staphylococcus -

Oxacillin;

Combined with beta-lactamase inhibitors -

Ampicillin/sulbactam.

How to dilute penicillin

Whenever an antibiotic is prescribed, the doctor must indicate the exact dose and dilution ratio. Trying to “guess” them on your own will lead to dire consequences.

The dilution standard for penicillin is 100,000 units per 1 ml of solvent (this can be sterile water for injection or saline). Different solvents are recommended for different drugs.

For the procedure you will need 2 syringes (or 2 needles) - for dilution and for injection.

Following the rules of asepsis and antiseptics, open the ampoule with the solvent and draw the required amount of liquid.
Puncture the rubber cap of the bottle with penicillin powder with a needle at a 90-degree angle. The tip of the needle should appear no more than 2 mm from the inside of the cap. Add the solvent (required amount) into the bottle. Disconnect the syringe from the needle.
Shake the bottle until the powder is completely dissolved. Place the syringe on the needle. Turn the bottle upside down and draw the required dose of medication into the syringe. Remove the bottle from the needle.
Change the needle to a new one - sterile, closed with a cap. Give an injection.

It is necessary to prepare the drug immediately before the injection - the activity of penicillin in the solution decreases sharply.

In the entire history of mankind, there has been no other medicine that has saved so many lives. At the very beginning of the war, many soldiers died not from wounds, but from blood poisoning. Penicillin has cured thousands of fighters who were considered hopeless. The story of its discovery is similar to a detective story, the outcome of which gave humanity the first antibiotic, which extended life expectancy by about 30 years.

In 1928, British microbiologist Alexander Fleming discovered a mold that inhibited the growth of staphylococcal cultures. This mold belonged to a rare species of fungi of the genus Penicillium - P. Notatum.

For many years, experts have tried to create a fungus-based drug that is convenient for practical use, but to no avail. The active substance in laboratory mold was not only difficult to clean up, but also proved to be unstable. It was only in 1940 that the first article about an effective antibiotic, penicillin, appeared in The Lancet. During the war, England did not have the opportunity to develop industrial production technology, and experts realized that they had to go to the USA. So in 1941, the front of research work moved to America.

Western Front

The trip itself turned out to be nervous: it was hot, and mold fungi cannot withstand high temperatures - they might not have been transported. In the USA, scientists faced another problem: the possibility of industrial production of penicillin. Scientific specialists communicated with many scientists and manufacturers, and eventually, in 1941, settled in a laboratory in Peoria, Illinois. American researchers proposed a new nutrient medium for growing molds - corn extract, which was abundant in this region of the United States. It turned out to be more than suitable for research purposes.

There was another task - to find the most “productive” strain of the fungus. Mold samples were sent to the laboratory from all over the world, but the desired one was not among them. They also searched locally: they hired a woman who bought moldy food - she was nicknamed “Moldy Mary.”

One fine summer day in 1943, Mary brought a half-rotten melon to the laboratory, and on it was golden mold Penicillium Chrysogenum, which turned out to be exactly what the scientists needed. It was possible to isolate the most effective strain from mold, and at the same time its production turned out to be very profitable: the cost of treating one case of sepsis decreased from 200 to 6.5 dollars. Today's penicillin is a descendant of that same mold.

Finally, the chairman of the US Medical Research Council, Alfred Richards, took the organization of production under his wing - funding came through US President Roosevelt. The first plant was built in less than a year, and during its first year of operation, penicillin production increased 100-fold.

The Allied army began using antibiotics in July 1943 during the landings in Sicily - deaths from gangrene stopped. According to some reports, the landing in Normandy in June 1944 was delayed not only for political reasons, but also because of fears that there would not be enough penicillin.

Antibiotics are not the best medicines. However, there are cases when without them any therapeutic measures will be ineffective and meaningless. Before the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming, a huge number of people died due to pneumonia, syphilis and other pathologies caused by infectious lesions. Even childbirth could claim the lives of mother and baby if an infection occurred at the time of the operation. Fleming did not invent a cure for every disease, but he did create something that enabled medicine and the pharmaceutical industry to develop. And to develop rapidly, which, in turn, made it possible to save a large number of people from inevitable death. Who is he, the “father” of penicillin and lysozyme?

Brief biography of Alexander Fleming

The man, whose name would become known throughout the world by 1945, was born on August 6, 1881 in Scotland, Ayrshire, on the Lochfield (Darvel) farm. Alexander's mother, Grace Stirling Morton, was the second wife of Hug Fleming, a farmer living next door to her father. Alexander was the third of Grace and Hug's four children. Fleming Sr. also had four more children from his first marriage. Hug was 59 years old when he married Alexander's mother. And he died when the boy was only 7 years old.

Elementary education

To describe this period of his life briefly, Alexander Fleming studied at Darwell rural school until he was 12 years old, then studied at the Kilmarnock Academy for two years, and at the age of 14 he moved to his older brothers in the capital of Great Britain, where he worked as a clerk and studied at the Royal Polytechnic Institute. Why did he decide to devote his life to medicine? An example was one of his older brothers, who by that time was already working as an ophthalmologist. So Alexander decided to go to medical school. As it turns out later, not in vain.

Medical education

Although Alexander did not have a passion for any particular field of medicine, his abilities in surgery indicated that the guy could become an outstanding doctor. However, he devoted his future life to laboratory medicine. Professor of Pathology Almroth Wright, who arrived at St. Mary's Hospital in 1902, played a major role in this matter. Just at the time when student Alexander Fleming was doing his internship here. Wright at that time was already the author of vaccination against typhoid fever, but did not stop there. He gathered a group of students, including John Freeman, John Wells and Bernard Spilsbury. With them, Almroth began a new “mission” - to find something that would activate antibodies in the body of a person suffering from a bacterial infection. Thus, the pathology professor wanted to find a method to combat infectious diseases. And this was inside the human body. When the group could not cope with the task, Fleming was added to it. At that time (1906), Alexander had already received an academic degree.

The research laboratory was attached to St. Mary's Hospital. Alexander Fleming worked there for the rest of his life, and in 1946 became director of the Institute.

Activities in laboratory medicine

Fleming is best known as the "father" of penicillin. But in fact, Alexander made a huge contribution to the development of medicine, constantly researching and studying everything. That's the kind of person he was - involved in his activities and striving to make the world a healthier place. Actually, like his mentor Wright. For example, a professor of pathology developed many micromeasurement techniques, and Fleming determined that they would be most useful in Wasserman's diagnosis of syphilis. New diagnostic methods made it possible to use only 0.5 ml instead of 5 ml of the patient’s blood. You just had to take it not from a finger, but from a vein.

The First World War forced Wright to go to France. The scientist took Fleming with him. There they opened the first wartime medical research laboratory, in which they solved many problems. One of the most important was a bacterial infection that developed in deep wounds, since it was capable of at least leaving people without limbs, and at most taking their lives. Alexander Fleming prepared the first report in 1915, in which he spoke about the diversity of bacteria present in wounds, and that many of them were still unknown to bacteriologists. Also, together with Wright, they determined that the antiseptics of that time, which were intended to disinfect wounds, not only did not cope with their task, but also harmed the person, which surgeons flatly refused to accept. However, a little later, two scientists were still able to defend their opinion. Fleming and Wright proved that antiseptics are ineffective for two reasons. First, they simply did not reach all the microbes. Secondly, their activity decreased significantly after colliding with various protein and cellular elements. Simply put, antiseptics destroyed white blood cells in the victim's body when they were needed as an effective defense mechanism.

Discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming

In this matter, the scientist’s sloppiness played a major role. At that time, he was already quite famous in the field of medicine, a brilliant researcher, but the disorder in his laboratory made him horrified. However, if not for this fact, Fleming might never have made such an important discovery for bacteriology. By the way, his sloppiness played a major role in the discovery of lysozyme. But more on that later.

After returning from home to his laboratory in 1928, Fleming was in for a pleasant surprise. He noticed that mold had appeared in one of the Petri dishes with cultures of staphylococci, which he had placed in the corner of the table before leaving. And - oh, miracle! - pathogenic microorganisms have been destroyed. On other plates, where molds were not present, staphylococci were “alive.” Fleming identified them as the penicillin genus. For several months he tried to remove the “pure” substance. And he managed to do it. On March 7 of the following year, he named the isolated substance penicillin.

Staphylococci and other gram-positive bacteria cause pneumonia, scarlet fever, diphtheria and meningitis, and penicillin could successfully combat these. Meanwhile, it was powerless against gram-negative pathogenic microorganisms that cause paratyphoid and typhoid fever. However, this result of the scientist’s efforts was, to put it mildly, useful for the further development of medicine.

"Refinement" of penicillin

So, in 1929, Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin. But he could not obtain a high-quality active substance or effectively purify it, since he was not a chemist. Accordingly, he could not use the result of his efforts in treating patients. Although he did a great job. For example, he determined that penicillin would not work in low dosages and short-term therapy. Other scientists, Howard Flory and Boris Chain, were already working on penicillin. Mass production of the antibiotic started already during the Second World War and saved many people.

Scientific discovery of lysozyme

It is possible that penicillin would never have been discovered. It was Fleming's earlier discovery of lysozyme that showed the scientist at his best, as a brilliant researcher. And this is probably why Flory and Chain set about refining penicillin. Even assuming that Fleming will still receive fame and honor for this discovery.

Lysozyme was discovered just as accidentally, and also thanks to, roughly speaking, the sloppiness of a genius. While conducting another study of bacteria, Fleming sneezed right over a Petri dish. He did not take any action, that is, these plates remained standing on the laboratory table. As it turned out, he did the right thing. A few days later, Alexander noticed that there were no more bacteria in the cups where the drops of saliva fell. They died. The scientist determined that it was human biological fluid that contributed to this. Thus, Alexander Fleming, whose photo can be seen in the article, discovered an enzyme that destroys some pathogenic microorganisms without damaging tissue. He called it lysozyme.

Awards and titles of the great scientist

Fleming, along with Cheyne and Florey, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of penicillin and its healing effects on various infectious diseases. This happened in 1945. In the 10 years preceding the death of the brilliant scientist, for his discoveries and achievements in the field of laboratory medicine, he received:

26 medals;
25 honorary degrees;
13 awards;
18 awards.

Fleming was also awarded honorary membership in many academies and scientific societies. In 1944 he received the title of nobility. By the way, many people are interested in what country is Alexander Fleming a citizen of? The scientist was born in Scotland and lived in this country all his life, with the exception of business trips. And the title of nobility there, as you know, is very important.

Personal life of a “sloppy genius”

Fleming was married twice. His first wife was Sarah, and they had a son, Robert. The young man decided to be like his father, followed in his footsteps and became a doctor. Sarah died in 1949. This had a negative impact on the scientist’s health. 4 years later, he married his former student and colleague, Greek Amalia Kotsouri-Vourekas. She died in 1986.

Death of A. Fleming

As already mentioned, the scientist’s health deteriorated greatly after the death of his first wife. Alexander Fleming's life ended on March 11, 1955. He died of myocardial infarction. The scientist was buried next to the most revered Britons, in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Fleming often visited Greece, and therefore on the day of his death, national mourning was declared in this country. And in Barcelona, huge armfuls of flowers were laid out at the memorial plaque with his name. This is probably a real honor. The real glory of the Great Scientist, whom the whole world respected and appreciated. And he simply loved his work madly and devoted himself entirely to it. He loved it so much that he even kept a Petri dish with overgrown mold fungi until the end of his days.