The drug Penicillin is very use full and has saved many lives, but where did it come from? The first person to discover Penicillin was Alexander Fleming. The first person to develop it was Dr. Howard Florey. After much work was done on the drug, it saved many lives and even won an award. Penicillin was a great discovery, but it wasn’t discovered on purpose. Alexander Fleming went on a month-long vacation after leaving his lab in a mess. Sources say that when he got back, he discovered lots of mold contaminated dishes. One of the dishes was filled with blue-green mold, and was dissolving all the nearby bacteria. Alexander believed the strange mold floated in on an air current through an open window in his lab. After further experimentation, …show more content…
Howard Florey started studying and showing Penicillin’s medical applications. The scientist was working at Oxford University and could not produce the quantity of Penicillin needed to try on humans. Mary Bellis states “On July 9th, 1941, Oxford University scientists came to the U.S. with a small but valuable package containing a small amount of Penicillin to begin work.” Florey then used submersion techniques to grow large numbers of Penicillin. The article The History of Penicillin states “In 1943, the required clinical trials were preformed and Penicillin was shown to be the most effective antibacterial agent to date.” Penicillin quickly became a widely used drug in the war and at home. The History of Penicillin, by Mary Bellis states “As production was increased, the price dropped from nearly priceless in 1940, to 20$ per dose in July 1943, to $0.55 per dose by 1946”. The drug saved countless lives in World War two and it still does. For Dr. Howard Florey’s work, a Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to him in 1945. In Not-So-Dumb Luck, The author Jesse Jane states “Necessity is not always the mother of invention; sometimes it’s happenstance that begets the most amazing