Alexander Fleming - Quick facts

 

 

 

Alexander Fleming was born on the 6th of August, 1881 at Lochfield Farm, Darvel, Ayrshire.

Alexander Fleming was knighted in 1944.

In 1945, Fleming, Florey and Chain were awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine.

Fleming was involved in inoculation of servicemen against typhoid during the First World War.

In 1928, Fleming was working on the staphylococci bacteria - the kind that cause boils and sore throats, when, whilst he was examining some old bacterial plates that he noticed a mould had grown on one of his cultures. The mould was later identified as Penicillium notatum which had produced what we now call penicillin.

Penicillin became a wonderful weapon in the fight against diseases once considered deadly. Its discovery led to the development of other similar antibiotics.

He discovered the enzyme lysozyme in 1923

In 1999, Time Magazine named Fleming one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century for his discovery of penicillin.

Fleming served throughout World War I as a captain in the Army Medical Corps, and was mentioned in dispatches.

Fleming was awarded the Hunterian Professorship by the Royal College of Surgeons of England

Florey went on to be elected President of the Royal Society in 1943 and received the greater honour of a peerage in 1965 for his monumental work in making penicillin available to the public and saving millions of lives in World War II, becoming a Baron.

A statue of Alexander Fleming stands outside the main bullring in Madrid, Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas. It was erected by subscription from grateful matadors, as penicillin greatly reduced the number of deaths in the bullring.