Page "Alexander Fleming" Paragraph 11

Fleming published his discovery in 1929, in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology, but little attention was paid to his article.

Fleming continued his investigations, but found that cultivating penicillium was quite difficult, and that after having grown the mould, it was even more difficult to isolate the antibiotic agent.

Fleming's impression was that because of the problem of producing it in quantity, and because its action appeared to be rather slow, penicillin would not be important in treating infection.

Fleming also became convinced that penicillin would not last long enough in the human body ( in vivo ) to kill bacteria effectively.

Many clinical tests were inconclusive, probably because it had been used as a surface antiseptic.

In the 1930s, Fleming ’ s trials occasionally showed more promise, and he continued, until 1940, to try to interest a chemist skilled enough to further refine usable penicillin.

Fleming finally abandoned penicillin, and not long after he did, Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford took up researching and mass-producing it, with funds from the U. S. and British governments.

They started mass production after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

When D-Day arrived, they had made enough penicillin to treat all the wounded Allied forces.