Alexander Fleming/Discovering Penicillin
What did he work hard to extract from the mould?
A juice, but he couldnt get much penicillin and couldnt make it survive even in a fridge. So fleming couldnt prove it could kill bacteria and make people better.
Who was Alexander Fleming?
A scientist who studied bacteria and wanted to find ways of killing them.
What happened about 10 years after penicillin was discovered?
Ernst Chain and Howard Florey set about trying to use it on people.
What did fleming do in 1934?
He gave up on penicillin and went on to do other work.
After one holiday what did Fleming see?
He saw that lots of his culture plates had mould growing on them. He noticed a clear ring in the jelly around some of the spots of mould. Something had killed the bacteria covering the jelly.
What was Alexander doing in 1928?
He was growing lots of bacteria on agar plates. He was rather careless and had an untidy lab, he often left lids of the plates and forgot about experiments he had set up.
When fleming saw how important it was what did he call the mould?
Penicillin
Ernst and Howard kept working and what did they do?
They managed to make penicillin on an industrial scale, the process was able to produce enough penicillin to supply the demands of the 2nd world war. We have used it as medicine ever since.
What did Ernst and Howard do?
They set about trying to use penicillin on people, they gave some to Albert Alexander who was dying of a blood infection. The effect was amazing and Albert recovered.
What happened when the penicillin ran out that ernst and howard were using on albert?
They tried to collect unused penicillin from alberts urine, but it was no good. The infection came back and Howard died.
