Moldy But Goody

(Originally posted in NTUMC 68 August 27, 2008)

In the new issue of Smithsonian, there is another short note, “Moldy
but Goody” in the section of “This Month In History”:

“ Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming returns to St. Mary
Hospital in London from a holiday on September 3, 1928, to find
mold growing on one of his staphylococcus cultures. Noting that no
staphylococci are growing near the mold, Fleming investigates. He
names the “mold juice” penicillin, for the penicillium mold that
produces it. Fleming publishes his discovery in 1929, but it will be a
decade before Oxford scientists Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain
isolate and purify it for use as an antibiotic. Fleming dies in 1955 at age
73. “

A great scientist made the discovery and had saved myriad people’s
lives !