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Article: Many made contributions to discovery of penicillin
- Article from:
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Article date:
- November 15, 1987
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright (null) Chicago Sun-Times. (Hide copyright information)
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Penicillin, an antibiotic known to everyone, was discovered in
1928 by Alexander Fleming. Or was it?
The popular version says Fleming saw a mold on a laboratory dish
surrounded by an area in which no bacteria were growing, and
immediately realized the mold was producing something that could cure
human infections. A nice story.
The truth is that Fleming observed the mold on a lab dish in
1928 and published his observations in a medical journal the next
year. He and his co-workers spent the next several years trying to
purify penicillin; however, it always turned out to be a brown,
syrupy mass and they were unable to extract the active ingredient.
Fleming tried the syrupy stuff on an ...