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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that reveals a little bit more about history

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Speaker 1: every day of the week. I'm Gabelusier, and in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the chance discovery of penicillin, a naturally

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Speaker 1: occurring antibiotic compound and one of the greatest advances in

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Speaker 1: therapeutic medicine the world has ever known. The day was

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Speaker 1: September Scottish microbiologist Alexander Fleming discovered a life saving antibiotic agent,

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Speaker 1: which he called penicillin. Antibiotics are substances produced by bacteria

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Speaker 1: and fungi which are capable of killing or suppressing other

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Speaker 1: microbial species. Humans have been aware of this special ability

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Speaker 1: since ancient times, but the phenomenon wasn't understood or widely

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Speaker 1: harnessed until Fleming's discovery in nineteen twenty eight. His breakthrough

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Speaker 1: finally provided an effective treatment for severe illnesses and infections

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Speaker 1: such as pneumonia, meningitis, gonorrhea, and rheumatic fever. The introduction

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Speaker 1: of penicillin saved the lives of countless patients and changed

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Speaker 1: the course of modern medicine. That means the drug also

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Speaker 1: helped create the colossal pharmaceutical industry we know today, but

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Speaker 1: don't hold that against it. The development of penicillin for

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Speaker 1: use as a medicine took a decade and a half

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Speaker 1: and involved the labor of several pathology professors and a

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Speaker 1: host of laboratory workers. But the man who got the

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Speaker 1: ball rolling by identifying penicillin was Alexander Fleming. He was

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Speaker 1: born in Ayrshire, Scotland, on August six, eighteen eighty one.

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Speaker 1: He moved to London when he was thirteen and began

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Speaker 1: taking classes at Regent Street Polytechnic. In nineteen o one,

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Speaker 1: he received a scholarship to Saint Mary's Hospital Medical School.

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Speaker 1: After completing his studies, Fleming accepted a job at St

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Speaker 1: Mary's as a medical bacteriologist. In nineteen o six, he

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Speaker 1: joined the staff of the inoculation department, where he administered

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Speaker 1: newly synthesized drugs and vaccines to patients. Fleming developed an

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Speaker 1: interest in the natural bacterial action of the blood and

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Speaker 1: in chemical antiseptics such as carbolic acid. He was able

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Speaker 1: to continue his studies on the subject during World War One,

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Speaker 1: when he worked at a wound research laboratory in Boulan, France.

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Speaker 1: It was vital work, as the chief killer in human

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Speaker 1: wars had always been infection rather than the battle injuries themselves.

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Speaker 1: The First World War was no different, prompting a desperate

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Speaker 1: search for antibacterial substances that wouldn't be toxic to animal tissues.

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Speaker 1: The war drew to a close without much progress on

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Speaker 1: that front, but in nineteen twenty one, Fleming made an

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Speaker 1: important stride. He had already discovered that puss from open

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Speaker 1: wounds had antibacterial properties, and he was eager to see

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Speaker 1: what other bodily fluids might be used as antiseptics. One day,

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Speaker 1: out of sheer curiosity, Fleming let his nose drip into

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Speaker 1: an uncovered Petrie dish. To his surprise, the mucus caused

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Speaker 1: the bacteria in the dish to disintegrate. He had just

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Speaker 1: discovered lysazyme, an antibacterial enzyme that exists not only in mucus,

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Speaker 1: but in tears, saliva, and a few other bodily secretions. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: Fleming's later attempts to create a concentrated form of lysozyme

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Speaker 1: were unsuccessful. However, his care free let's see what happens

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Speaker 1: approach to scientific study ultimately led him to an even

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Speaker 1: greater discovery. In ninety eight, it was mid August and

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Speaker 1: Fleming had just set out London on a two week

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Speaker 1: vacation to Scotland. Before we go any further, I want

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Speaker 1: to say that, by all accounts, Dr Fleming had many

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Speaker 1: admirable qualities. For instance, Time magazine once described him as

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Speaker 1: quote a gentle, retiring scott with somewhat dreamy blue eyes,

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Speaker 1: fierce white hair, and a mulling mind, which, when it moves,

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Speaker 1: moves with the thrust of a cobra. However, he was also,

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Speaker 1: by all accounts, a rather messy worker, so messy that

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Speaker 1: he didn't bother cleaning up his lab before heading out

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Speaker 1: on vacation. He had been experimenting with the influenza virus

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Speaker 1: and had left a petri dish containing a staphylo caccus

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Speaker 1: culture sitting out on his lab bench. That bacteria should

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Speaker 1: have been placed in the sterile environment of an incubator,

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Speaker 1: but since Fleming didn't keep a very tidy lab, it

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Speaker 1: was instead left out to fester for his entire two

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Speaker 1: week holiday. When the doctor returned on September three, he

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Speaker 1: notice something unusual about the neglected dish. In his absence.

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Speaker 1: The bacteria had grown, but so had a mold spore

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Speaker 1: that had somehow made its way into the culture. The

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Speaker 1: presence of mold wasn't notable in itself, but its distribution

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Speaker 1: within the dish was. There were colonies of bacteria all

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Speaker 1: over the dish, except for in the one area where

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Speaker 1: the mold was growing. A ring of clear space surrounded

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Speaker 1: the mold, almost like an invisible force field that the

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Speaker 1: bacteria hadn't been able to get through. After placing the

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Speaker 1: dish under his microscope, Fleming realized something remarkable. The mold

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Speaker 1: had secreted a fluid, let's call it mold juice that

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Speaker 1: seemed to inhibit the growth of the bacteria. To confirm

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Speaker 1: his findings, Fleming needed to grow more of the mystery mold.

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Speaker 1: It took several weeks, but at last, on septem Fleming

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Speaker 1: was able to identify the mold as a rare strain

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Speaker 1: of Penicillium notatum, and of the research revealed that it

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Speaker 1: could effectively kill not only Staphylo caccus, but a wide

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Speaker 1: range of other harmful bacteria. He later reflected on that

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Speaker 1: auspicious moment, writing quote, one sometimes finds what one is

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Speaker 1: not looking for. When I woke up just after dawn

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Speaker 1: on September I certainly didn't plan to revolutionize all medicine

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Speaker 1: by discovering the world's first antibiotic or bacteria killer. But

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Speaker 1: I guess that was exactly what I did. His discovery

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Speaker 1: did pave the way for the medical revolution he humbly described,

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Speaker 1: But it's worth noting again that Fleming didn't actually use

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Speaker 1: penicillin to combat infectious diseases. His work focused instead on

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Speaker 1: penicillin's potential use as a topical antiseptic for cleaning wounds

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Speaker 1: and surface infections. Fleming published a paper to that effect

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Speaker 1: in ninety nine, but the scientific community didn't pay much

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Speaker 1: attention to his findings. However, in the decade that followed,

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Speaker 1: Oxford researchers Howard Floory and Ernst Chain carried on and

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Speaker 1: eventually finished the work that Fleming had started. They developed

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Speaker 1: penicillin for use as a therapeutic agent to fight bacterial

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Speaker 1: diseases within the body, first in laboratory mice and later

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Speaker 1: in human beings. They were aided in this effort by

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Speaker 1: a biochemist named Norman Heatley. Through much trial and error,

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Speaker 1: Heatley was able to grow huge amounts of penicillin mold,

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Speaker 1: allowing the antibiotic fluid it produced to be suctioned off

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Speaker 1: and purified for use as a medicine. His techniques were

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Speaker 1: crewed by today's standards, but they were a crucial first

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Speaker 1: step on the road to the mass production of antibiotics.

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Speaker 1: In March of nineteen forty two, fourteen years after Fleming's

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Speaker 1: initial discovery, a woman named Anne Miller, became the first

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Speaker 1: civilian patient to be successfully treated with penicillin after suffering

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Speaker 1: a miscarriage. Miller had developed an infection, streptococcle septicemia that

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Speaker 1: resulted in severe blood poisoning. In the past, there would

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Speaker 1: have been little the doctors could do for her, and

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Speaker 1: she almost certainly would have died. But thanks to the

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Speaker 1: research of Fleming, Flory, Chain, and Heatley, and Miller survived,

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Speaker 1: and so did millions more just like her. Penicillin did

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Speaker 1: wonders on the front line as well, greatly reducing the

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Speaker 1: number of deaths and amputations among troops. During World War Two,

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Speaker 1: an infected war wound was no longer the death sentence

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Speaker 1: it once was. For example, in the First World War,

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Speaker 1: the death rate from bacterial pneumonia was eighteen percent, but

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Speaker 1: during World War Two it felled less than one percent.

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Speaker 1: That incredible showing proved the worth of penicillin, and by

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Speaker 1: the end of the war, American companies were cranking out

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Speaker 1: six hundred and fifty billion units of the medicine every month.

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Speaker 1: Other antibiotics were eventually discovered as well, but penicillin remained

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Speaker 1: the most widely used, and it still is today. In

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Speaker 1: Alexander Fleming, Howard Floory, and Ernst Chain were recognized for

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Speaker 1: their pioneering work when they were awarded the Nobel Prize

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Speaker 1: in Physiology or Medicine. Sadly, Norman Heatley received no such recognition,

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Speaker 1: though Oxford did eventually award him an honorary doctorate of

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Speaker 1: Medicine in Although Fleming tends to receive the most credit

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Speaker 1: for his discovery of penicillin, there's a common perception that

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Speaker 1: he didn't really do all that much. After all, he

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Speaker 1: didn't develop the compound for medical use, and even his

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Speaker 1: discovery of it seemed to be a total accident. In

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Speaker 1: all likelihood, other scientists had seen Penicillium notatum growing in

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Speaker 1: their own peatree dishes long before Fleming, but unlike them,

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Speaker 1: Fleming didn't discard his moldy dish as of failed experiment. Instead,

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Speaker 1: he used his keen eye for detail to recognize is

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Speaker 1: the mold surprising properties, and then he exercised his scientific

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Speaker 1: curiosity to learn more about them. As Fleming himself admitted

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Speaker 1: he didn't set out to change the world, but because

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Speaker 1: of who he was, observant, curious, and somewhat messy, that's

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Speaker 1: exactly what he did. I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you

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Speaker 1: now know a little more about medical history today than

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Speaker 1: you did yesterday. You can learn even more about history

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Speaker 1: by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t

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Speaker 1: d i HC Show, and if you have any comments

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Speaker 1: or suggestions, you can always send them my way at

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Speaker 1: this Day at I heart media dot com. Thanks to

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Speaker 1: Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thanks to you

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Speaker 1: for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for

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Speaker 1: another day in History class