Alexander fleming where is he from

A folk tradition using molds in medicine was similarly neglected. In Alexander Fleming — discovered penicillin, made from the Penicillium notatum mold, but he did not receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery until It was left to his fellow Nobelists, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain , to demonstrate in that penicillin could be used as a therapeutic agent to fight a large number of bacterial diseases.

Born in Lochfield, Ayrshire, Scotland, Fleming was the seventh of eight surviving children in a farm family. His father died when he was seven years old, leaving his mother to manage the farm with her eldest stepson.

Fleming, having acquired a good basic education in local schools, followed a stepbrother, already a practicing physician, to London when he was He spent his teenaged years attending classes at Regent Street Polytechnic, working as a shipping clerk, and serving briefly in the army during the Boer War — , although he did not see combat.

Then in he won a scholarship to St. At first supplies of penicillin were very limited, but by the s it was being mass-produced by the American drugs industry. Fleming wrote numerous papers on bacteriology, immunology and chemotherapy. He was elected professor of the medical school in and emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of London in He was elected fellow of the Royal Society in and knighted in Fleming died on 11 March Fleming studied at St Mary's Medical School and was closely associated with this institution for the rest of his life.

Naturally very bright and a quick learner, he completed his medical degree and won almost every prize and medal available. Wright, one of Fleming's mentors, asked him to stay on at the hospital after completing his studies. A pioneering figure in medical research, Wright believed that vaccines and immunisation held the key to the treatment of infectious diseases. He had a strong influence on Fleming. They were involved in the treatment of the wounded from battlefields.

Fleming would have seen men with horrific wounds already badly infected. Infected wounds had to be amputated because antiseptics didn't work. After the war, Fleming discovered and proved the natural antiseptic power of the enzyme he called 'lysozyme'.

Six years later, he identified a germ-killing mould — one of a group known as 'Penicillium' — but was unable to enlist the help of research chemists to take this work further. Pharmaceutical companies eventually took an interest, and the commercial production of penicillin as an antibiotic began. Chain, a biochemist, succeeded in purifying penicillin in early , and he and Florey reported its therapeutic value on mice later that year and on human volunteers in early That summer, Florey promoted the drug in the United States, and, by early , American pharmaceutical companies were mass producing penicillin for distribution to Allied soldiers during the Second World War.

By war's end, the supply was large enough to use the drug in the treatment of civilians. Together, Fleming, Chain, and Florey had discovered and developed the first antibiotic, providing physicians with what was colloquially called the "wonder drug" in the s and s for its ability to effectively treat previously fatal bacterial infections.

Prior to his discovery of penicillin, Fleming had already enjoyed a successful career as an immunologist. Mary's Hospital in London, Fleming established himself as a highly capable research scientist. His earliest accomplishments included making two improvements on methods for testing and treating syphilis. He simplified the Wassermann test so that it could be performed using a small blood sample derived from a finger prick rather than a vein. He also described an improved technique for treating syphilis patients with Salvarsan, or "," the notoriously difficult-to-administer antisyphilis drug developed by Paul Ehrlich.

More than just a technician who improved upon others' ideas, Fleming made many discoveries in his own right. While working at a makeshift laboratory in France during the First World War, Fleming and Wright demonstrated that the antiseptics used by surgeons in the field were more harmful than helpful: they were often more effective at killing the body's infection-fighting leukocytes than infection-causing bacteria. Thereafter, Fleming began searching for a nontoxic antibacterial substance, and, by November , he had found one.