Penicillin $1.69 AUD
Category: Medicine & Inventions
When Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928, it was a lucky accident. He didn’t realise at the time that penicillin would dramatically change the face of medicine and the pharmaceutical industry. Fleming was a researcher studying the natural antibacterial substances produced by the body. He had been working with the bacteria that caused boils. To study the bacteria he grew colonies of it on plates. He later took a holiday leaving plates of bacteria to grow while he was away. On returning from his holiday, he noticed a mould growing on one of the plates. Colonies of the bacteria, which should have been growing around the mould, had died off. Fleming knew this to be strange and went about trying to identify the mould. He discovered the mould produced an antibacterial substance which he later named “penicillin”. However, the penicillin produced by the mould was elusive and seemingly impossible to separate from the concoction in which he had cultivated it. As Fleming was unable to isolate the penicillin and did not yet realise its importance, he abandoned his work.
