Sir Alexander Fleming was born at Lochfield near Darvel in Ayrshire, Scotland on 6 August, 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. Alexander Fleming was a Scottish bacteriologist, famous for his discovery of penicillin. Fleming grew up on a farm. As a young man, he served in World War I in the Medical Corps, giving him an opportunity to witness the deaths of many soldiers from infected wounds. After the war, he accidentally discovered antibiotics. In 1945, he was co-awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. 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. He died on 11 March, 1955.
Alexander Fleming
