September 28 Highlights Penicillin’s Discovery and Other Pivotal Historical Events
On September 28, Alexander Fleming identified penicillin, while the day also recalls milestones ranging from the ancient Marathon run to modern Olympic marathon winners.
In September 1928 Alexander Fleming returned to his London laboratory and observed that a mold contaminating a bacterial culture halted the growth of Staphylococcus aureus. He isolated the mold, Penicillium notatum, and coined the term penicillin for the substance it released. Although Fleming published his findings in 1929, large-scale production awaited the work of Howard Florey, Ernst Chain and biochemist Norman Heatley at Oxford, who demonstrated its life-saving effect in infected mice in 1940.
Early human trials, such as the case of police officer Albert Alexander, showed promise but were limited by insufficient supply. A breakthrough came when a Penicillium chrysogenum strain from a mold-covered cantaloupe yielded far greater quantities, enabling industrial-scale manufacturing in the United States during World War II. The antibiotic’s impact on wartime casualties earned Fleming, Florey and Chain the 1945 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
