MEDICINE'S GREAT ALEXANDER



Scotland born Sir Alexander Fleming, FRS FRSE FRCS, was a physician and microbiologist who discovered the world's first antibiotic, Penicillin...

Son of a farmer couple Hugh and Grace, Fleming a gold medalist from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, London, in 1908, served as a physician during World War I...

Though aspiring to be a surgeon, Fleming took up a temporary post in the Inoculation Department at St. Mary's Hospital, where his mentor, bacteriologist and immunologist, Sir Almroth Edward Wright's ideas inspired Fleming to pursue research and experimentation...

As a bacteriologist with Royal Army Medical Corps during World War I, Fleming studying wound infections in a lab in Boulogne, France, noted that antiseptics commonly used then were ineffective. His recommendation that wounds be kept just dry and clean got no takers...

As assistant director of St. Mary's Inoculation Department after the war, Fleming's first significant contribution to medical research was his discovery of Lysozyme, an antiseptic enzyme present in body fluids. He soon realised that lysozyme had no effect on destructive bacteria...

Resuming work after a month's vacation, in September 1928, Fleming noted that a culture of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria he had left out had been destroyed by a mold (later identified as Penicillium notatum)...

In Fleming's own words, "When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn't plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic, or bacteria killer. But I suppose that was exactly what I did." And thus Penicillin was born...

With that discovery of the bacteria-destroying mold called Penicillin through rigorous research and experimentation, the era of antibiotics in modern healthcare came into being...

Scientists at University of Oxford scientists Howard Florey and Ernst Chain isolated and purified the antibiotic Penicillin which found extensive use in wound infection control during World War II. Florey, Chain and Fleming shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. The Inoculation Department of St. Mary's Inoculation Department was renamed the Wright-Fleming Institute...

Knighted in 1944, Sir Fleming passed away after a cardiac arrest on March 11, 1955, at his home in London, England...

🙏🙏🌹💐

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FLAWED PRINCIPLE

Image
It is International Self-Care Day today, and yet another 24th, marking 17 months of conflict in Eastern Europe. With t he Kerch Strait bridge suffering yet another damage last week and Russia, almost reflexly, putting brakes on the hitherto 'food-prices stabilizing' Black Sea grain deal followed by strikes on Odesa, fresh dark clouds of hunger loom large on several dependent nations... With much water having flown under the 'David-Goliath' bridge, one wonders whether peace would ever be given a chance, since such moves of hope are hardly visible over the horizon... While it is said that everything that begins has to end, b e it lives, an event, a thought, an article, anything, but perhaps war not so easily; not unprecedented either. Yes, it could end after a certain length of time, anybody's guess, but in this context one would now certainly ask as to 'at what cost?'... No constituent of nature works on a principle of profit excep...
Read more

WORLD BRAIN DAY

Image
22nd of July is observed as World Brain Day since 2014. The day was chosen during the 21st World Congress of Neurology held in Vienna on September 22, 2013 under the aegis of World Federation of Neurology, which incidentally was also formed on 22 July, in 1957... The day aims to educate people regarding brain health, to help people afflicted with neurological disorders, and to the furtherance of research and advances in therapies and prevention... The theme for 2023 is - "Brain Health and Disability: Leave No One Behind"... Brain, a conglomeration of nerve filaments and connections, which if untangled would measure a distance of around 60 kilometers, plays a pivotal role in all aspects of our intellect, thoughts and response... About ten trillion connections thus help us see, register, read, write, speak, learn, think, analyze, move etc. to face the challenges thrown at us on a daily basis at all levels, irrespective of age, race, gender, nationality and soci...
Read more

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF RADIOLOGY

Image
November 8th is observed as International Day Of Radiology as a tribute to the great German scientist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen for his discovery of X-Rays in 1895.. The 1845 born Nobel Laureate of 1901, Röntgen majored in Physics and completed his PhD at the University of Zurich.. Discovering X-rays accidentally while using cathode rays for images of his wife’s hand, which depicted the bones and the wedding ring, Röntgen had made a giant leap for mankind in medical diagnosis.. International Day of Radiology (IDoR) was first celebrated in the year 2012 with the combined efforts of the European Society of Radiology (ESR), the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), and the American College of Radiology (ACR).. The ESR began the European Day of Radiology on February 10th, 2011, but soon it was replaced by the International Radiology Day, along with the decision to change the date to November 8th, commemorating the day of Röntgen's discovery.. The theme for 2024 is - “R...
Read more