Chemistry Breakthroughs That Shaped Our Modern World
There’s a good chance that penicillin has saved your life. Without it, a prick from a thorn or sore throat can easily turn fatal. Alexander Fleming generally gets the credit for penicillin when, in 1928, he famously observed how a mold growing on his Petri dishes suppressed the growth of nearby bacteria.
But, despite his best efforts, he failed to extract any usable penicillin. Fleming gave up and the story of penicillin took a 10-year hiatus. Until in 1939 Australian pharmacologist Howard Florey and his team of chemists figured out a way of purifying penicillin in useable quantities.
However, as World War II was raging at the time, scientific equipment was in short supply. The team therefore cobbled together a totally functional penicillin production plant from bath tubs, milk churns and book shelves. Not surprisingly the media were extremely excited about this new wonder drug, but Florey and his colleagues were rather shy of publicity. Instead Fleming took the limelight.
Full-scale production of penicillin took off in 1944 when the chemical engineer Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau took Florey’s Heath Robinson-esque design and converted it into a full-scale production plant.
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