Penicillin: More than a Moldy Petri Dish

The development of penicillin started – but definitely did not end – with the chance discovery of some mold in a petri dish. There is so much more to the story. Research: Bernard, Diane. “How a miracle drug changed the fight against infection during World War II.” Washington Post. 7/11/2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/07/11/penicillin-coronavirus-florey-wwii-infection/ British Library. “Inventor(s) of the month, Alexander Fleming and the story of Penicillin.” 7/28/2021. https://blogs.bl.uk/business/2021/07/inventors-of-the-month-alexander-fleming.html Chain, E. et al. “Penicillin as a Chemotherapeutic Agent.” The Lancet. Vol. 236, Issue 6104. 8/24/1940. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(01)08728-1 Fleming A. On the Antibacterial Action of Cultures of a Penicillium, with Special Reference to their Use in the Isolation of B. influenzæ. Br J Exp Pathol. 1929 Jun;10(3):226–36. PMCID: PMC2048009. Gaynes, Robert. “The Discovery of Penicillin—New Insights After More Than 75 Years of Clinical Use.” Emerg Infect Dis. 2017 May; 23(5): 849–853.. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5403050/ Lee, Victoria. “Microbial Transformations.” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, SEPTEMBER 2018, Vol. 48, No. 4. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26507225 National Museums of Scotland. “Culture Vessel.” https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/science-and-technology/culture-vessel/ Quinn, Roswell. “Rethinking Antibiotic Research and Development: World War II and the Penicillin Collaborative.” American Journal of Public Health | March 2013, Vol 103, No. 3. Scibilia, Anthony Julius. “Being Prometheus in 1943:: Bringing Penicillin to the Working Man.” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies , Vol. 80, No. 3 (Summer 2013). https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/pennhistory.80.3.0442 Science History. “Alexander Fleming.” 12/5/2017. https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/alexander-fleming Science Museum. “How Was Penicillin Developed?” 2/23/2021. https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/how-was-penicillin-developed Shama, Gilbert. “’Déjà Vu’ – The Recycling of Penicillin in Post-liberation Paris.” Pharmacy in History , 2013, Vol. 55, No. 1 (2013). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23645718 The Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum, London, UK. “The Discovery and Development of Penicillin 1928-1945.” 11/19/1999. https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/flemingpenicillin/the-discovery-and-development-of-penicillin-commemorative-booklet.pdf Wainwright, Milton. “Moulds in Folk Medicine.” Folklore , 1989, Vol. 100, No. 2 (1989). https://www.jstor.org/stable/1260294 Wainwright, Milton. “The History of the Therapeutic Use of Crude Penicillin.” Medical History, 1987, 31: 41-50. Williams KJ. The introduction of 'chemotherapy' using arsphenamine - the first magic bullet. J R Soc Med. 2009 Aug;102(8):343-8. doi: 10.1258/jrsm.2009.09k036. PMID: 19679737; PMCID: PMC2726818. Wood, Jonathan. “Penicillin: The Oxford Story.” Oxford News Blog. 7/16/2010. https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/penicillin-oxford-story Zaffiri, Lorenzo et al. “History of Antibiotics. From Salvarsan to Cephalosporins.” Journal of Investigative Surgery, 25, 67–77, 2012.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.