Questions and Answers on Sir Alexander Fleming
Sir
Alexander Fleming was born at Lochfield near Darvel in
Ayrshire, Scotland on August 6th, 1881. He attended Louden Moor
School, Darvel School, and Kilmarnock Academy before moving to
London where he attended the Polytechnic. He spent four years in
a shipping office before entering St. Mary's Medical School,
London University. He qualified with distinction in 1906 and
began research at St. Mary's under Sir Almroth Wright, a pioneer
in vaccine therapy. He gained M.B., B.S., (London), with Gold
Medal in 1908, and became a lecturer at St. Mary's until 1914. He
served throughout World War I as a captain in the Army Medical
Corps, being mentioned in dispatches, and in 1918 he returned to
St.Mary's. He was elected Professor of the School in 1928 and
Emeritus Professor of Bacteriology, University of London
in 1948. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in
1943 and knighted in 1944.
Early in his medical life, Fleming became interested in the
natural bacterial action of the blood and in antiseptics. He was
able to continue his studies throughout his military career and
on demobilization he settled to work on antibacterial substances
which would not be toxic to animal tissues. In 1921, he
discovered in «tissues and secretions» an important
bacteriolytic substance which he named Lysozyme. About this time,
he devised sensitivity titration methods and assays in human
blood and other body fluids, which he subsequently used for the
titration of penicillin. In 1928, while working on influenza
virus, he observed that mould had developed accidently on a
staphylococcus culture plate and that the mould had created a
bacteria-free circle around itself. He was inspired to further
experiment and he found that a mould culture prevented growth of
staphylococci, even when diluted 800 times. He named the active
substance penicillin.
Sir Alexander wrote numerous papers on bacteriology, immunology
and chemotherapy, including original descriptions of lysozyme and
penicillin. They have been published in medical and scientific
journals.
Fleming, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (England), 1909,
and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London), 1944,
has gained many awards. They include Hunterian Professor (1919),
Arris and Gale Lecturer (1929) and Honorary Gold Medal (1946) of
the Royal College of Surgeons; Williams Julius Mickle Fellowship,
University of London (1942); Charles Mickle Fellowship,
University of Toronto (1944); John Scott Medal, City Guild of
Philadelphia (1944); Cameron Prize, University of Edinburgh
(1945); Moxon Medal, Royal College of Physicians (1945); Cutter
Lecturer, Harvard University (1945); Albert Gold Medal, Royal
Society of Arts (1946); Gold Medal, Royal Society of Medicine
(1947); Medal for Merit, U.S.A. (1947); and the Grand Cross of
Alphonse X the Wise, Spain (1948).
He served as President of the Society for
General Microbiology, he was a Member of the Pontifical
Academy of Science and Honorary Member of almost all the medical
and scientific societies of the world. He was Rector of Edinburgh University
during 1951-1954, Freeman of many boroughs and cities and
Honorary Chief Doy-gei-tau of the Kiowa tribe. He was also
awarded doctorate, honoris causa, degrees of almost thirty
European and American Universities.
In 1915, Fleming married Sarah Marion McElroy of Killala,
Ireland, who died in 1949. Their son is a general medical
practitioner.
Fleming married again in 1953, his bride was Dr. Amalia
Koutsouri-Voureka, a Greek colleague at St. Mary's.
In his younger days he was a keen member of the Territorial Army
and he served from 1900 to 1914 as a private in the London
Scottish Regiment.
Dr Fleming died on March 11th in 1955 and is buried in St. Paul's
Cathedral.
From Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1964
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
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