Page "Alexander Fleming" Paragraph 9

By 1927, Fleming was investigating the properties of staphylococci.

He was already well-known from his earlier work, and had developed a reputation as a brilliant researcher, but his laboratory was often untidy.

On 3 September 1928, Fleming returned to his laboratory having spent August on holiday with his family.

Before leaving, he had stacked all his cultures of staphylococci on a bench in a corner of his laboratory.

On returning, Fleming noticed that one culture was contaminated with a fungus, and that the colonies of staphylococci that had immediately surrounded it had been destroyed, whereas other colonies farther away were normal.

Fleming showed the contaminated culture to his former assistant Merlin Price, who reminded him, " That's how you discovered lysozyme.

" Fleming grew the mould in a pure culture and found that it produced a substance that killed a number of disease-causing bacteria.

He identified the mould as being from the Penicillium genus, and, after some months of calling it " mould juice ", named the substance it released penicillin on 7 March 1929.