Moulding Modern Medicine

Glass Phial of British Standard Penicillin, London, England. Photograph provided by The Science Museum, London (published under fair use).

Three tubes of penicillin powder, two of International Stand. Photograph provided by The Science Museum, London (published under fair use).

Alexander Fleming (1881–1955) was a Scottish medical bacteriologist at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London. He is most popularly known for his discovery of penicillin as the world’s first antibiotic, a revolutionary discovery that saved many lives, particularly during World War II. To this day, penicillin is widely used to fight bacterial infections.

While penicillin’s discovery as an antibiotic was accidental, it nonetheless revealed Fleming’s sharp and incisive thinking. Fleming’s short recording presented in this exhibit—a part of his talk for the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in 1945—was another testament to his wit as he accurately predicted the dangers of antibiotic resistance. He demonstrated not just his knowledge of microbes and biology, but also his keen understanding of human behaviour in medicine. While his discovery turned dangerous infections into easily treatable illnesses, his words too were just as important as we attempted to find ways around antibiotic resistance.

The Wellcome Library is a major repository for the study of medical history. The Library was founded on the collections of Henry Solomon Wellcome (1853-1936), originally a pharmaceutical salesman whose interest in the history of medicine led him to collect books and create a Library as well as a Museum. Though he envisaged the library to be accessible to the public, it was only many years after his death that the collection was formally opened to the public as the Wellcome Historical Medical Library. Today, the Wellcome Library is focused on making these resources available by digitising large parts of its growing collection of manuscripts, videos, images, paintings, and much more.

The CABI is an international and intergovernmental organization that provides information and scientific inputs to solve problems related to agriculture and the environment.