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PENICILLIN Did you know that if Sir Alexander Fleming had been a tidy man, he might have not made the greatest medical discovery of the 20th century? The truth is that Fleming had so much going on in his lab that it was often in a mess. Yet his untidiness proved very fortunate. One day while cleaning up a pile of Petri dishes from the sink where he had been growing bacteria, he noticed a very unusual sight. Some mold was developing on one of the dishes and all around the mold were clear rings where the bacteria should have been growing. Something in the mold was evidently killing the microbes. Fleming had not even dreamed that he had found the “miracle drug”. The discovery of penicillin was one of the great milestones in medical history, because it saved millions of people, increased life expectancy, and opened a door to a whole new way of treating bacterial infection (the field of antibiotics.) It was a hard life for the Flemings in Lochfield near Darvel in Ayshire, Scotland. Alexander’s father, Hugh, remarried at age 60 after his first wife, Jane, died of tuberculosis after the birth of their fourth child. Hugh’s second wife was a young and energetic woman, Grace Morton. They had four more children together-Grace, John, Alexander (whom everyone called Alec), and Robert. While the older half-brothers and sisters took care of the heavy farm chores, the young Fleming boys were free to spend their time exploring their 800 acres of moorland. The world of Lochfield nurtured a love of nature and its creations that Alec Fleming would carry with him throughout his life. He attended Lauden Moor School, Darvel School, and Kilmarnock Academy before moving to London where he attended the Polytechnic. He spent four years in a shipping office before entering St. Mary’s Medical School, London University. He qualified with distinction in 1906 and began research at St.
Approximate Word count = 1246
Approximate Pages = 5
(250 words per page double spaced)
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