
Penicillin’s history, the first antibiotic to successfully treat patients with serious infectious diseases, has a fortunate beginning. British scientist Alexander Fleming discovered in 1928 that mold had stopped bacteria from growing in his lab. However, the story’s main conflict centers on an Australian scientist who was born this year, one hundred years ago, rediscovering penicillin ten years later. The methodical, meticulous work of Howard Florey and his committed team turned penicillin from a fascinating observation into a life-saving discovery.
In the past, Emma Burkervisc served as the tea lady at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University (Howard Florey later in life played a significant role in the establishment of the School and University). Imagine how Emma felt when she ran into Florey in the hallways of the office where she worked many years after penicillin had saved her life in a German refugee camp during World War II. Consider your reaction if you met someone who saved your life and consider the global impact Florey and his team have had.
Breaking the Mould
At Oxford University in Britain in the 1930s, when working on scientific discoveries as a group was hardly ever common, Florey assembled a team of scientists. Nowadays, scientists collaborate frequently, but Florey saw that science had progressed to the point where a team of experts was required because the task was too big for one person.
His team started a thorough investigation into the characteristics of antibacterial compounds made by mold. When Ernst Chain, one of the team members, was flipping through a medical journal and came across an article about Alexander Fleming’s work, they started researching penicillin.
The group’s members focused on the topics about which they knew the most, but they frequently got together to share ideas. Together with Edward Abraham, Chain purified penicillin. Using bedpans and ether, Norman Heatley devised improvised extraction techniques for penicillin (see “penicillin production” below). A. D. Gardner and Jena Orr-Ewing investigated the interactions of penicillin with various microbes. Together with Margaret Jennings, Howard Florey examined how penicillin affected animals. Later, Ethel Florey collaborated with her husband on penicillin clinical trials.

They carried out one of the most significant medical experiments in history in May 1940. Florey’s team tested penicillin on eight mice that had been given lethal doses of streptococci bacteria on Saturday, May 25, due to the urgency of the work that required them to start the experiment over the weekend. Penicillin was administered to four of the mice, while four were used as controls. The treated mice had recovered the following day, while the untreated mice had passed away. The lives of eight mice in the early days of World War II may seem insignificant. However, the treatment of Allied soldiers with penicillin began as early as D-Day, in June 1944, and is likely what turned the tide of the war.
The First Patient
The outcomes were so fascinating that Florey realized it was time to test the medication on people. The initial patient had been stung by a rose thorn in 1941. The entire face, eyes, and scalp of Albert Alexander had swollen. Even his remaining eye had to be lanced to relieve the pain of the swelling after he had already had an eye removed and abscesses cleaned out. After receiving penicillin, he started to feel better within a day. However, Florey’s team lacked enough of the medication to ensure the patient’s full recovery. They attempted to reuse the penicillin by removing it from his urine, but they were unsuccessful, and he tragically relapsed and passed away. Because of the awful experience, the team then concentrated their efforts on sick children, who did not require such large quantities.
For the purpose of researching the effects of penicillin on wounded soldiers, Florey traveled to North Africa in 1943. His hardships were regarded as a miracle. He recommended that soldiers’ wounds be cleaned and stitched up, and then that the patients be given penicillin, rather than amputating injured limbs or just letting them heal on their own. By the end of World War II, the drug was available to treat Allied soldiers thanks to Florey and his team, and it has since revolutionized medical science and saved millions of lives.
Before Penicillin
How many times have you unintentionally poked your finger with a sewing needle or a rose thorn? Nowadays, you would be treated almost immediately if the wound became infected. However, you could have been in serious trouble prior the discovery of Penicillin. Like cancer today, infections were feared back then. Your glands would swell up, and lancing would be necessary to drain the pus. Your arm might even need to be amputated by a surgeon in an effort to save your life. Before Howard Florey discovered penicillin, many infectious diseases lived in this nightmare.

Setting the Stage for Penicillin
Molds and fermented substances had been used to treat various skin infections three thousand years before penicillin, though their actual mechanisms of action were unknown. But the first scientific investigations into antibiotics didn’t start until the late 1800s. Louis Pasteur, a French chemist, noticed that anthrax (an infectious disease spread from animals to humans) was inhibited by mold after learning that infectious diseases are spread by bacteria. Joseph Lister, a British surgeon, observed that urine samples contaminated with mold prevented bacteria from growing, but he was unable to pinpoint the substance in the mould. French medical student Ernest Duchesne successfully tested a substance from mould that inhibited bacterial growth in animals, but died at an early age in 1912, never seeing the world’s acceptance and use of his important discovery.
A tear from Alexander Fleming’s eye fell into a culture plate while he was working with bacteria after World War I. Later, he discovered that lysozyme, a substance in his tear, killed the bacteria while being safe for the body’s white blood cells. Years later, while studying the flu, a related coincidence happened to Fleming. While he was away, a piece of mould that contained bacteria fell into a discarded culture plate and formed a clear patch. When he came back, he recognized this pattern from his prior lysozyme experience. He came to the conclusion that the mold was generating an antibiotic substance and gave penicillin, the antibiotic’s name, to the Penicillium mold that was generating it.
His finding was an incredible stroke of good fortune. Penicillin might not have been discovered as an antibiotic if Fleming hadn’t left a petri dish of bacteria on his bench when he went on vacation, if he had properly cleaned the dish, if the weather had been different from the ideal conditions for bacteria and mould growth in the laboratory, and especially if Fleming hadn’t had the experience to recognize the significance of the observation.
However, Fleming was unable to extract the substance that kills bacteria, so he was unable to test it as a treatment for widespread infections. He left to pursue other research, leaving Howard Florey and his group to lay the foundation for penicillin’s use as a lifesaving drug more than a decade later.
Fabulous Fungus
The first naturally occurring antibiotic discovered was penicillin; protosil, the first drug used to treat some infectious diseases, was found in 1933 but had negative side effects. Antibiotics, which are substances that battle bacteria, fungi, and other microbes harmful to humans, now the amount over 60. The word “antibiotic” means “against life.”
An antibiotic is a medication made by microbes, such as the molecule penicillin. Penicillium molds provide penicillin in a variety of forms. The most popular form of penicillin, penicillin G, was used by Duchesne in 1896, Fleming in 1928, and Florey in 1939 to kill bacteria.
When bacteria reproduce, they divide into two new cells. Before the DNA chromosome is copied, they enlarge to roughly twice their original size. A cell wall develops in between the two new chromosomes as they move apart. However, the new cell wall won’t be able to form if penicillin is present. It only prevents the formation of new cell walls in bacteria; for more information, see balloon bacteria. As a result, the bacteria cannot multiply and the disease cannot spread.

Natural penicillin is given intravenously because, if swallowed, stomach acids would degrade the medication before it could enter the bloodstream. Nowadays, one dose of penicillin is equivalent to the total amount used by Florey’s team during all of their clinical trials! Penicillin allergies affect about one in ten people, with symptoms that can range from minor skin rashes to serious breathing problems. There are now alternative antibiotics that can be used if you are allergic to penicillin.
So Who Was Howard Florey?

Due to his wife’s failing health, Florey’s father moved from England to Adelaide where he ran a shoe store. He wed Bertha after she passed away from tuberculosis; the couple had two daughters before Howard was born.
Howard excelled in sports and did exceptionally well on his schoolwork. His high school chemistry teacher motivated him to enroll in the University of Adelaide’s medical program. He met fellow medical student Ethel here. He was accepted to Oxford University at the end of 1921 after receiving the South Australian Rhodes Scholarship (a prize given for outstanding leadership and tenacity in academics and sport). Before Ethel moved to England to wed Howard in 1926, they wrote to one another for a few years. She had an unhappy marriage, which was influenced by both his intolerance and her ill health and hearing. She passed away in 1966. One year before his heart attack-related death at age 69, Howard wed Margaret Jennings, a significant member of the penicillin team, once more in 1967.
With Fleming and Chain, he shared the 1945 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his leadership of the scientific team that discovered and developed penicillin. He was the first Australian elected to the prestigious position of President of the Royal Society in 1960, where he was known as “the Bushranger President,” and was decorated by the UK, France, Australia, and the US for his impact on the outcome of World War II. He was knighted in 1944. In 1965, he was created Baron Florey of Adelaide, and the following year, he agreed to become Chancellor of the Australian National University.
Brilliant But Humble
He said, “All we did was to do some experiments and have the luck to hit on a substance with astonishing properties.” Florey was quiet about his accomplishments, describing them in a 1967 interview as a “terrible amount of luck” that “involved many others.” His enthusiasm for science, his talent, and his complete honesty and lack of pretense inspired those around him.
Florey understood how his drug affected population growth. Perhaps to counter this effect, contraception research was a lifelong interest and he was a vocal proponent for population control. He said in 1967, “I’m now accused of being partly responsible for the population explosion… one of the most devastating things that the world has got to face for the rest of this century.”
He stayed away from the press when penicillin’s success was discovered because he detested doing interviews and didn’t want to spur an excessive demand for the drug’s limited supply. His dislike of publicity may be the reason why Howard Florey’s crucial contribution to the penicillin story is still largely unknown throughout the world, despite the fact that a suburb of Canberra bears his name and his likeness appeared on the old $50 note. Let’s hope the real story comes out on the anniversary of his birth.

How a Total Lunar Eclipse Saved Christopher Columbus in 1504
In 1504, Christopher Columbus was stranded in Jamaica with natives who refused to give him food. But he knew the date and time of an upcoming lunar eclipse. So he told the natives that his gods were angry at their treatment of him, and would provide a clear sign. Once the eclipse started, the natives raced to give him food and begged for mercy.

The youngest person executed, George Stinney Jr was proven innocent
In 1944, George Stinney Jr. was 14 years old when he was executed in South Carolina. It took only ten minutes to convict him — and 70 years to exonerate him.

Knockers-up: waking up the Industrial Britain's Workers in 1900-1941
Before alarm clocks were invented, there was a profession called a knocker-up, which involved going from client to client and tapping on their windows (or banging on their doors) with long sticks until they were awake. It lasted into the 1920s.

The Amazing Truth About The German U-Boat That Was Sunk By A Toilet
During WWII, a German captain and an engineer flushed the submarine's high-tech toilet incorrectly, causing the vessel to rapidly fill with water. British planes patrolling the sea attacked them as the submarine was brought to the surface. While many members of the crew were killed in the attack, the captain escaped!

The incredible story of a plane that lost its roof in mid-flight and the light signal that saved 94 lives.
On April 28, 1988, Aloha Airlines flight 243 was on the way to Honolulu from Hilo when a huge portion of the upper part of the fuselage blew off the airplane.

Quaker Oats Fed Children with Radioactive Oatmeal
In the 1940s and 1950s, Quaker Oats and MIT conducted experiments on radioactive iron and calcium-containing cereal. The diet was part of a study to see if the nutrients in Quaker oatmeal traveled throughout the body. In January 1998, a $1.85 million settlement was reached for 30 victims who came forward.

The 1814 London beer flood
In 1814, there was a beer flood in London when a tank containing more than 300,000 gallons ruptured in which 8 people drowned.

Nuclear bomb accidentally dropped on North Carolina in 196
4 January 1961: The 4241st Strategic Wing's Boeing B-52G-95-BW Stratofortress, serial number 58-0187, was on a 24-hour airborne alert mission off the United States' Atlantic Coast.

Blanche Monnier: Imprisoned For 25 Years For Falling in Love
Blanche Monnier, she was a French woman noted for her beauty, she wished to marry an old lawyer that her mother disapproved of, so she locked her in a small dark room in her attic for 25 years.

how Ferris wheel invented
In 1891, Chicago challenged engineers to create a structure to surpass the Eiffel Tower for the World's Columbian Exposition. George Washington Gale Ferris jr. responded with the original Ferris Wheel, a giant rotating structure elevating visitors above the city. This invention became an iconic attraction at the fair.

The history of Flour sack clothing fashion
After Kansas mill owners found women reused flour sack materials into apparel in the 1920s and 1930s, they started applying patterned designs to give families with more fashionable patterns and material.

How European Rabbits Took over Australia
In 1859, wealthy settler Thomas Austin released 13 wild rabbits on his Australian estate. By 1920, their population grew to 10 billion.

D.B. Cooper: Man who hijacked a plane and jumped out with a $200,000
On November 22, 1971, DB Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727, drank a whisky, smoked a fag, and then jumped out of the plane with $200,000. He was never again seen.

What Was the Beast of Gévaudan?
Between 1764 and 1767, a mysterious animal called the Beast of Gévaudan terrorized the French village called Gévaudan. It attacked and killed about 100 adults and children. While most believe it was a wolf, some say it may have been a wolf-dog hybrid, hyena or even a lion, but without any genetic evidence, the beast will remain a mystery forever.

A Brief History of the PlayStation Gaming Console
Sony's PlayStation was never meant to be an actual product. Instead, it was intended to be a CD-ROM console that would support Nintendo games. However, when Nintendo backed out of the deal at the last minute, Sony went ahead and launched what soon became one of the most successful gaming consoles of all time.

The 1976 April Fools' Pranks, Planetary Alignment
On April fool's Day, 1976, the BBC convinced many listeners that a special alignment of the planets would temporarily decrease gravity on Earth. Phone lines were flooded with callers who claimed they felt the effects.

The story of a man who spent 72 hours with 72 venomous snakes to prove they only bite when provoked
In the 1980s, an Indian man spent 72 hours in a glass cabin with 72 snakes, some of which were extremely venomous. His aim was to prove that snakes only attack when provoked. Remarkably, he was not bitten once in those 72 hours and even set a Guinness World Record in the process.

Top 10 Greatest and shocking Archaeological Discoveries of All Time
While we're all locked at home, there's no better way to escape to another time and place than to learn about amazing archeological sites and discoveries from around the world. Here are the 10 greatest and shocking archaeological discoveries —and don't be shocked if they inspire future trip plans whenever it's safe to do so again.

Albert Einstein’s brain after it was stolen from his body
Albert Einstein's brain was taken by the opportunistic pathologist who performed his autopsy hours after he died and kept in two jars for 30 years. The stolen brain of Albert Einstein was preserved in a cookie jar for 30 years until being discovered by a journalist.

The Horrific story of Ariel Castro and the Cleveland abduction
Cleveland abduction victims Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight, and Amanda Berry were forced to live in Ariel Castro's house of horrors for 10 years. He raped and beat them until they escaped in 2013.

George Dantzig solved two famous “unsolved” problems in statistics mistakenly as assignment
In 1939, George Dantzig arrived late to his statistics class. On the board were two famous “unsolved” problems in statistics written as an example by his professor. Dantzig mistook the examples for homework assignments. He solved the “unsolved” problems and submitted the homework to his professor a few days later. His solutions earned him a doctorate.

The Mouth of Truth: Ancient Rome’s Legendary "Lie Detector" That Bit Off Hands
Discover the chilling legend of the Mouth of Truth (Bocca della Verità) in Ancient Rome—a massive carved stone face believed to bite off the hand of anyone who lied while inserting their hand into its gaping mouth. Uncover the truth behind its eerie reputation and how this ancient artifact became a symbol of honesty and fear.

Philippines, the largest supplier of Nurses in the World
Philippines is the world’s largest supplier of nurses, supplying roughly 25% of all overseas nurses worldwide.

Why was the Eiffel Tower almost demolished
The Eiffel Tower was intended to be a temporary structure for the World's Fair in 1889, but it was nearly dismantled and sold for scrap metal. It was saved because of its potential use as a radio antenna, and it now serves as a tourist attraction as well as a working broadcast tower.

Hedy Lamarr, A Hollywood actress who also a mathematician and inventor
Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr was also a mathematician and the inventor of frequency hopping spread spectrum, a technology still used for bluetooth and wifi