Alexander Fleming Biography
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Sir Alexander Fleming (6 August 1881 –
11 March 1955) was a Scottish physician, microbiologist, and pharmacologist.
His best-known discoveries are the enzyme lysozyme in 1923 and the world's
first antibiotic substance benzylpenicillin (Penicillin G) from the mould
Penicillium notatum in 1928, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology
or Medicine in 1945 with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain.
Early Life and Education
Sir Alexander Fleming was born at
Lochfield near Darvel in Ayrshire, Scotland on August 6th, 1881. He attended
Louden Moor School, Darvel School, and Kilmarnock Academy before moving to
London where he attended the Polytechnic. He spent four years in a shipping
office before entering St. Mary’s Medical School, London University. He
qualified with distinction in 1906 and began research at St. Mary’s under Sir
Almroth Wright, a pioneer in vaccine therapy. He gained M.B., B.S., (London),
with Gold Medal in 1908, and became a lecturer at St. Mary’s until 1914. He
served throughout World War I as a captain in the Army Medical Corps, being
mentioned in dispatches, and in 1918 he returned to St.Mary’s. He was elected
Professor of the School in 1928 and Emeritus Professor of Bacteriology,
University of London in 1948. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in
1943 and knighted in 1944.
Research
Early in his medical life, Fleming
became interested in the natural bacterial action of the blood and in
antiseptics. He was able to continue his studies throughout his military career
and on demobilization he settled to work on antibacterial substances which
would not be toxic to animal tissues. In 1921, he discovered in «tissues and secretions» an important
bacteriolytic substance which he named Lysozyme. About this time, he devised
sensitivity titration methods and assays in human blood and other body fluids,
which he subsequently used for the titration of penicillin. In 1928, while
working on influenza virus, he observed that mould had developed accidently on
a staphylococcus culture plate and that the mould had created a bacteria-free
circle around itself. He was inspired to further experiment and he found that a
mould culture prevented growth of staphylococci, even when diluted 800 times.
He named the active substance penicillin.
Sir Alexander wrote numerous papers on
bacteriology, immunology and chemotherapy, including original descriptions of
lysozyme and penicillin. They have been published in medical and scientific
journals.
Awards and Honours
Fleming, a Fellow of the Royal College
of Surgeons (England), 1909, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians
(London), 1944, has gained many awards. They include Hunterian Professor
(1919), Arris and Gale Lecturer (1929) and Honorary Gold Medal (1946) of the
Royal College of Surgeons; Williams Julius Mickle Fellowship, University of
London (1942); Charles Mickle Fellowship, University of Toronto (1944); John
Scott Medal, City Guild of Philadelphia (1944); Cameron Prize, University of
Edinburgh (1945); Moxon Medal, Royal College of Physicians (1945); Cutter
Lecturer, Harvard University (1945); Albert Gold Medal, Royal Society of Arts
(1946); Gold Medal, Royal Society of Medicine (1947); Medal for Merit, U.S.A.
(1947); and the Grand Cross of Alphonse X the Wise, Spain (1948).
He served as President of the Society
for General Microbiology, he was a Member of the Pontifical Academy of Science
and Honorary Member of almost all the medical and scientific societies of the
world. He was Rector of Edinburgh University during 1951-1954, Freeman of many
boroughs and cities and Honorary Chief Doy-gei-tau of the Kiowa tribe. He was
also awarded doctorate, honoris causa, degrees of almost thirty European and
American Universities.
Personal Life
In 1915, Fleming married Sarah Marion
McElroy of Killala, Ireland, who died in 1949. Their son is a general medical
practitioner.Fleming married again in 1953, his bride was Dr. Amalia
Koutsouri-Voureka, a Greek colleague at St. Mary’s.
Death
Fleming died of a heart attack on March
11, 1955, at his home in London, England. He was survived by his second wife,
Dr. Amalia Koutsouri-Vourekas, and his only child, Robert, from his first
marriage.
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