44 Facts About Alexander Fleming

Sir Alexander Fleming was a Scottish physician and microbiologist, best known for discovering the world's first broadly effective antibiotic substance, which he named penicillin.

Alexander Fleming discovered the enzyme lysozyme from his nasal discharge in 1922, and along with it a bacterium he named Micrococcus Lysodeikticus, later renamed Micrococcus luteus.

Hugh Fleming had four surviving children from his first marriage.

Alexander Fleming was 59 at the time of his second marriage to Grace, and died when Alexander was seven.

Alexander Fleming went to Loudoun Moor School and Darvel School, and earned a two-year scholarship to Kilmarnock Academy before moving to London, where he attended the Royal Polytechnic Institution.

Alexander Fleming, who was a private in the London Scottish Regiment of the Volunteer Force from 1900 to 1914, had been a member of the rifle club at the medical school.

At St Mary's Hospital, Alexander Fleming continued his investigations into bacteria culture and antibacterial substances.

Allison recalled, Alexander Fleming was not a tidy researcher and usually expected unusual bacterial growths in his culture plates.

Alexander Fleming extended his tests using tears, which were contributed by his co-workers.

Alexander Fleming's paper describing his discovery was received with no questions asked and no discussion, which was most unusual and an indication that it was considered to be of no importance.

The importance of lysozyme was not recognised, and Alexander Fleming was well aware of this, in his presidential address at the Royal Society of Medicine meeting on 18 October 1932, he said:.

Alexander Fleming was already well known from his earlier work, and had developed a reputation as a brilliant researcher.

On 3 September 1928, Alexander Fleming returned to his laboratory having spent a holiday with his family at Suffolk.

On his return, Alexander Fleming noticed that one culture was contaminated with a fungus, and that the colonies of staphylococci immediately surrounding the fungus had been destroyed, whereas other staphylococci colonies farther away were normal, famously remarking "That's funny".

Alexander Fleming suspected it to be P chrysogenum, but a colleague Charles J La Touche identified it as P rubrum.

Alexander Fleming grew the mould in a pure culture and found that the culture broth contained an antibacterial substance.

Alexander Fleming investigated its anti-bacterial effect on many organisms, and noticed that it affected bacteria such as staphylococci and many other Gram-positive pathogens that cause scarlet fever, pneumonia, meningitis and diphtheria, but not typhoid fever or paratyphoid fever, which are caused by Gram-negative bacteria, for which he was seeking a cure at the time.

Alexander Fleming presented his discovery on 13 February 1929 before the Medical Research Club.

Alexander Fleming's talk on "A medium for the isolation of Pfeiffer's bacillus" did not receive any particular attention or comment.

Alexander Fleming published his discovery in 1929 in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology, but little attention was paid to the article.

Alexander Fleming's problem was the difficulty of producing penicillin in large amounts, and moreover, isolation of the main compound.

Alexander Fleming read a paper on his work on penicillin at a meeting of the International Congress of Microbiology, attended by the foremost bacteriologists from all over the world.

Alexander Fleming bore these disappointments stoically, but they did not alter his views or deter him from continuing his investigation of penicillin.

Shortly after the team published its first results in 1940, Alexander Fleming telephoned Howard Florey, Chain's head of department, to say that he would be visiting within the next few days.

Alexander Fleming was modest about his part in the development of penicillin, describing his fame as the "Alexander Fleming Myth" and he praised Florey and Chain for transforming the laboratory curiosity into a practical drug.

Alexander Fleming was the first to discover the properties of the active substance, giving him the privilege of naming it: penicillin.

Alexander Fleming kept, grew, and distributed the original mould for twelve years, and continued until 1940 to try to get help from any chemist who had enough skill to make penicillin.

Alexander Fleming gave some of his original penicillin samples to his colleague-surgeon Arthur Dickson Wright for clinical test in 1928.

Cecil George Paine, a pathologist at the Royal Infirmary in Sheffield and former student of Alexander Fleming, was the first to use penicillin successfully for medical treatment.

Alexander Fleming cured eye infections of one adult and three infants on 25 November 1930.

Alexander Fleming applied his penicillin and cured Rogers before the competition.

Alexander Fleming tested the antibiotic susceptibility and found that his penicillin could kill the bacteria.

Florey sent the incompletely purified sample, which Alexander Fleming immediately administered into Lambert's spinal canal.

Alexander Fleming published the clinical case in The Lancet in 1943.

Alexander Fleming discovered very early that bacteria developed antibiotic resistance whenever too little penicillin was used or when it was used for too short a period.

Alexander Fleming cautioned about the use of penicillin in his many speeches around the world.

On 24 December 1915, Alexander Fleming married a trained nurse, Sarah Marion McElroy of Killala, County Mayo, Ireland.

Alexander Fleming came from a Presbyterian background, while his first wife Sarah was a Roman Catholic.

When Fleming learned of Robert D Coghill and Andrew J Moyer patenting the method of penicillin production in US in 1944, he was furious, and commented:.

From 1921 until his death in 1955, Alexander Fleming owned a country home named "The Dhoon" in Barton Mills, Suffolk.

On 11 March 1955, Alexander Fleming died at his home in London of a heart attack.

The laboratory at St Mary's Hospital where Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin is home to the Alexander Fleming Museum, a popular London attraction.

The Sir Alexander Fleming Building on the South Kensington campus was opened in 1998, where his son Robert and his great-granddaughter Claire were presented to the Queen; it is one of the main preclinical teaching sites of the Imperial College School of Medicine.

The active ingredient in that mould, which Alexander Fleming named penicillin, turned out to be an infection-fighting agent of enormous potency.