Modem hospitals are clean and safe and doctors can cure many diseases. But it was not always so. For a long time, health care was often dangerous and risky. Treatments were neither scientific nor effective, and many patients suffered deadly infections as a result of operations. In fact, even a small cut could cause an infection that would kill the patient. In the early twentieth century, a doctor in London found a chemical that would change hospitals and health care forever. The discovery is a story of hard work and a happy accident.
In the early 1900s, a German chemist developed a chemical treatment for a serious disease that had been considered incurable. The news of the treatment reached London, where a young doctor named Alexander Fleming began using it in his clinic. In 1914, World War I started and Fleming had to go to France to treat soldiers. During the war, Fleming noticed that many soldiers died from simple infections. Because he had been able to treat infections in his patients in London, Fleming thought that there must be a chemical that could fight infections in the soldiers' wounds. He invented many new ways to treat the wounded, but it was not until after the war that he made his most important discovery.
When Fleming returned from the war, he began searching for the chemical which he believed could treat infections. His first discovery was a chemical found in many body liquids, such as tears. This chemical was able to fight mild infections, but it was not strong enough to cure serious infections. Fleming continued his search until a fortunate incident led him to a new discovery of even greater significance. One day in 1928, Fleming was cleaning up the lab after coming home from a holiday. On a bench by the sink, he found some old glass containers in which he had been growing bacteria. As he was washing the jars and lids, he saw something strange. In one of the jars, a mould was growing. The existence of the mould did not surprise Fleming, but he also noticed that the bacteria around the mould had died and stopped growing. Could this be the "chemical he was looking for?
Fleming examined the mould carefully. He found out which family of moulds it belonged to and decided to call the chemical penicillin. He was excited about his discovery and wrote about it in 1929, but other scientists did not seem to care. Despite their lack of interest, Fleming kept trying to develop the chemical so that it would be safe and effective.
It was not until World War II that the importance of Fleming's discovery was fully recognised. By then, Fleming and two other scientists had developed a kind of penicillin that was very effective in curing infections. The chemical, the "good mould", saved many lives during the war and has continued to fight diseases ever since. In 1945, Sir Alexander Fleming received the Nobel Prize together with the two other scientists. When asked about his discovery, Sir Alexander Fleming said: "One sometimes finds what one is not looking for." |