Alexander Fleming, Inventor of Penicillin

Alexander Fleming, penicillin inventor, born in 1881 in Lochfield, Scotland.

After finishing St. Mary Medical School St. Mary in London, Fleming start to study about body immunity.
Later, as the army doctors in the Second World War-1, he learned the particulars wound infection, and he found that many antiseptic damage body cells more than a bacteria.

Fleming realize, what is needed is something to kill the bacteria but does not dangerous and harmful to human body cells.

After the war, Fleming returned to the St. Mary hospital. In 1922, he found something what he call lysozyme. Lysozyme is an enzyme found in egg white, tears, and other secretions. It is responsible for breaking down the polysaccharide walls of many kinds of bacteria and thus it provides some protection against infection. Lysozyme will kill certain bacteria, but unfortunately not effective on the specific bacteria that is dangerous for people. What he just found, however interesting, did not have a great meaning.

Year 1928 finally Fleming find something meaningful. In his laboratory he breeds a bacteria called "Staphylococcus", and it is left open in the air. Fleming found in the area around the contamination, the bacteria become liquid. He quickly concluded that the decomposition produce the toxic substance that harmful to "Staphylococcus". Immediately he was able to show that the substance is similar to the growth of various types of harmful bacteria. The substance of that - which is named after the incident penicilin decomposition (penicillium notatum) - is harmful for people and animals.

Fleming invention was announced in 1929, but initially did not attract much attention. Fleming revealed that the penicilin have important meaning for treatment. However, Fleming himself can not develop techniques to purify penicilin, and more than ten years something that is very valuable remain displaced.

Finally, at the end of the 1930's, two British medical field investigator, Howard Walter Florey and Ernst Boris Chain finds Fleming’s invention. They re-examine Fleming’s invention and make clearer results. They then purify penicilin, try it in the animals laboratory. Year 1941 they tried penicillin to people who suffer pain. Their experiment clearly prove that the penicilin is a very potential medicine.

United Kingdom and the United States govenment, encourage the drug manufacturer to produce penicillin in large-scale. Initially, penicillin is provided for free use only for the victims of war, but then in the year 1944 can be used by civil society in the UK and the United States.

When the war finished in 1945, the use of penicillin has spread throughout the world.

Discovery of penicillin greatly escalate other antibiotics investigations but, penicillin remains the antibiotic of the most widely used.

Penicillin effective against various micro-organisms that is dangerous. Penicillin are useful to cure syphilis, gonorrhea, diphtheria, as well as various kinds of arthiritis, bronchitis, scarlet, lever, gangrene, and more.

Other benefits of penicillin is relatively safe in use. Dose of 50,000 units of penicillin made effective against various infections. Injection of 100 million units of penicillin a day did not cause any effect. Although reported a small amount of the penicillin allergy, penicillin still widely spread around the world.

Since penicillin has saved millions of lives and people will save more lives in the future, very few people understand the different meanings of the discovery of penicillin. The right place for Fleming in the list of this sequence depends, of course, to how much people give meaning to the role given by Florey and Chain. Without Fleming, it takes time to find the penicillin. Once he announced his invention, sooner or later there will be a perfection by somebody else.

Fleming marry and live happy with one child. In 1945 he was given for the Nobel Prize, and share the prize to Florey and Chain. He died in the year of 1955.