• Question: Who do you think was responsible for the discovery of penicillin? Alexandrer Flemming or Howard Florey and Earst Chain?

    Asked by alexvotier to Michelle, Lori-An on 18 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Michelle Hudson-Shore

      Michelle Hudson-Shore answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      As far as I can remember Flemming discovered it and Florey and Chain then developed it. That’s the trouble with discoveries like this so many people are often working on something at the same time in different places that attributing it to a single person causes controversy.

    • Photo: Lori-An Etherington

      Lori-An Etherington answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hi, apparently the action of the mold Penicillium notatum was originally observed by a French medical student, Ernest Duchesne, in 1896. However in 1928 Alexander Fleming grew the mold and found that it produced a substance that killed a number of disease-causing bacteria and called the substance penicillin. In this respect I would say that Alexander Flemming was indeed responsible for the discovery of penicillin. Howard Florey and Ernst Chain followed up successfully on Alexander Fleming’s discovery, pinpointing the active ingredient and designing a medical preparation.

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