September 28th: The Day that Sir Alexander Fleming Accidently Discovered Penicillin

September 28th 1928 was the date that Sir Alexander Fleming discovered the Penicillium notatum mould growing in his laboratory, which led to the development of the antibiotic Penicillin. Fleming's laboratory was situated in St Mary's Hospital in London, which is now part of Imperial College, and it was in here that he had accidently left the lid off a Petri dish containing Staphylococcus plate culture, and consequently was now growing a lovely blue-green mould. This turned out to be the Penicillium mound, which meant great things for Fleming.

   After his discovery, Fleming was highly optimistic of penicillin's use as an antibiotic, however after studying its effects in depth he doubted its effectiveness in the human body. In 1934 he restarted clinical trials of the drug, and eventually achieved successful results...on mice! A team of researchers at the University of Oxford trialled and tested the drug on mice, however its performance on humans was still unknown. More pioneering experiments took place over several years, and eventually human use of penicillin was proved safe, and whats more, successful. March 14th 1942 saw John Bumstead and Orvan Hess save a patient's life through using penicillin.

   Sir Alexander Fleming, alongside Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain, received a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1945, commending the scientists for their innovating, and life-saving discovery and research. So maybe it does pay off to be forgetful and let things grow mouldy! What do you think about this purely accidental stumbling across one of medicine's greatest discoveries?