The path that this man walked is familiar to every scientist - searches, disappointments, daily work, failures. But a series of accidents that occurred in Fleming's life determined not only his fate, but also led to discoveries that caused a revolution in medicine.
Family
Alexander Fleming (pictured above) was born on August 6, 1881 on the Lochfield farm in Ayrshire (Scotland), which his father Hugh rented from Earl Laudi.
Hugh's first wife died and left him four children, at the age of sixty he married Grace Morton. There were four more children in the family. An old gray-haired man, he knew that he would not live long, and was worried if the older children could take care of the younger ones, give them an education.
His second wife managed to create a friendly, close-knit family. The older children ran the farm, the younger ones were given complete freedom.
Childhood and education
Alec, a stocky boy with blond hair and a charming smile, spent time in the company of his older brothers. At the age of five, he went to school a mile from the farm. ATin severe frosts, to warm their hands on the way, the mother gave the children hot potatoes. When it rained, socks and boots were hung around the neck so that they could last longer.
At the age of eight, Alec was transferred to a school located in the nearby town of Darwell, and the boy had to overcome four miles. Somehow during the game, Alec hit his nose hard on the forehead of a friend, since then he has remained with a broken nose. At the age of 12 he graduated from Darvel School. The older brothers agreed that Alec should continue his studies, and he entered the Kilmarnock school. The railway had not yet been built at that time, and the boy covered 10 km every Monday morning and Friday evening.
At the age of 13, 5 Fleming Alexander entered the Polytechnic School in London. The boy showed deeper knowledge than his peers, and he was transferred to 4 classes higher. After high school, he began working at American Line. In 1899, during the Boer War, he entered the Scottish regiment and proved to be an excellent marksman.
Medical School
The older brother Tom was a doctor and told Alec that he was wasting his brilliant abilities on useless work, he needed to continue his education at a medical school. In order to get there, he passed the high school exams.
In 1901 he entered the medical school at the hospital in St. Mary's and began to prepare for admission to the university. He differed from fellow students both in studies and in sports. As they later noted, he was much more gifted, took everything seriously and, mostmost importantly, he identified the most essential, directed all efforts to it and easily achieved the goal.
Everyone who studied there remembers two champions - Flemming and Pannet. After practice, Alexander was allowed to work in the hospital, he passed all the tests and received the right to the letters F. R. C. S. (Member of the Royal Corps of Surgeons). In 1902, Professor A. Wright created a department of bacteriology at the hospital and, recruiting a team, invited Alexander to join it. All further biography of Alexander Fleming will be connected with this laboratory, where he will spend his whole life.
Private life
Alexander got married on December 23, 1915, while on vacation. When he returned to the laboratory in Boulogne and informed his colleagues about this, they hardly believed that the taciturn and reserved Fleming had really married. Alexander's wife was an Irish nurse, Sarah McElr, who ran a private clinic in London.
Unlike Fleming Alexander, Sarah was distinguished by a cheerful character and sociability and considered her husband a genius: "Alec is a great person." She encouraged him in all endeavors. Having sold her clinic, she did everything so that he would only do research.
Young people bought an old estate near London. Income did not allow to keep servants. With their own hands they put things in order in the house, planned a garden and a rich flower garden. On the bank of the river bordering the estate, a boat shed appeared, a path lined with bushes led to a carved arbor. The family spent weekends and vacations here. The Flemings' house was never empty, they always had friends visiting.
March 181924 son Robert was born. He, like his father, became a doctor. Sarah died in 1949. Fleming in 1953 married a second time to his Greek colleague Amalia Kotsuri. Sir Fleming died of a heart attack two years later.
Wright Laboratory
Fleming learned a lot in Wright's laboratory. It was a great fortune to work under a scientist like Wright. The laboratory switched to vaccine therapy. He sat over his microscope all night long, easily doing all the work, and Alexander Fleming. In short, the importance of the research was that the opsonic blood index could determine the diagnosis of the patient several weeks earlier and prevent many diseases. The patient was given a vaccine, and the body produced protective antibodies.
Wright was convinced that this was just a step towards exploring the vast possibilities that vaccine therapy could be used for infections. Undoubtedly, the laboratory staff believed in vaccination. Bacteriologists from all over the world came to Wright. Patients who heard about the successful treatment method arrived at their hospital.
Since 1909, the bacteriological department has acquired complete independence. I had to work tirelessly: in the morning - in hospital wards, in the afternoon - consultations with patients whom doctors recognized as hopeless. In the evening, everyone gathered in the laboratory and studied countless blood samples. Fleming also prepared for the exams and successfully passed them in 1908, receiving a gold medal from the university.
The impotence of medicine
Fleming successfully treated patients with salvarsan, created by the German chemist P. Ehrlich, but Wright had high hopes for vaccine therapy and was skeptical about chemotherapy drugs. His students recognized that the opsonic index is interesting, but requires inhuman effort to determine.
In 1914 the war broke out. Wright was sent to France to set up a research and development center in Boulogne. He took Fleming with him. The laboratory was attached to the hospital and, rising into it in the morning, biologists saw hundreds of the wounded, dying from the infection.
Fleming Alexander began to investigate the effect of antiseptics and saline solutions on microbes. He came to the disappointing conclusion that after 10 minutes, these products are no longer dangerous for germs. But the worst thing is that antiseptics did not prevent gangrene, but even contributed to its development. The body itself coped most successfully with microbes, “sending” leukocytes to destroy them.
Military field laboratory
Wright's laboratory found that the bactericidal property of leukocytes is unlimited, but subject to their abundance. So, by mobilizing hordes of leukocytes, you can achieve the best results? Fleming took up research in earnest, looking at the soldiers who suffered and died from infection, he burned with the desire to find a tool that could kill microbes.
In January 1919 bacteriologists were mobilized and returned to London, to their laboratory. Back in the war, while on vacation, Fleming Alexander married and took up closeresearch. Fleming had a habit of not throwing away culture plates for two or three weeks. The table was always filled with test tubes. They even made fun of him about it.
Discovery of lysozyme
As it turned out, if he, like everyone else, cleaned the table on time, such an interesting phenomenon would not have happened. One day, while sorting out the cups, he noticed that one was covered with large yellow colonies, but a large area remained clean. Once Fleming sowed mucus from his nose there. He prepared a culture of microbes in a test tube and added mucus to them.
To everyone's surprise, the liquid cloudy from microbes became transparent. Such was the effect of tears. Within a few weeks, all the tears of laboratory assistants became the object of research. The “mysterious” substance discovered by Alexander Fleming was able to kill non-pathogenic cocci and had the properties of enzymes. The whole laboratory came up with a name for it, it was called micrococcus lysodeicticus - lysozyme.
To prove that lysozyme is in other secrets and tissues, Fleming began research. All the plants in the garden were examined, but egg white turned out to be the richest in lysozyme. There was 200 times more of it than in tears, and lysozyme had a bactericidal effect on pathogenic microbes.
Protein solution was administered intravenously to infected animals - the antibacterial property of the blood increased many times over. It was necessary to isolate pure lysozyme from egg white. Everything was complicated by the fact that there was no professional chemist in the laboratory. Afterreceiving penicillin, interest in lysozyme will fade somewhat, and research will resume after many years.
The Great Discovery
In September 1928, Fleming found mold in one of the cups, near it the colonies of staphylococci dissolved, and instead of a cloudy mass there were drops like dew. He immediately began research. The discoveries turned out to be interesting - the mold turned out to be fatal for anthrax bacilli, staphylococci, streptococci, diphtheria bacilli, but did not act on typhoid bacillus.
Lysozyme was effective against harmless microbes, unlike it, mold stopped the growth of pathogens of very dangerous diseases. It remains to find out the type of mold. In mycology (the science of fungi), Fleming was weak. He sat down at the books, it turned out that it was "Penicillium chrysogenum". You need to get an antiseptic that will stop the reproduction of microbes and will not destroy tissue. This is what Alexander Fleming did.
He grew penicillin in meat broth. It was then purified and infused into the abdominal cavity of the animals. Finally, they found that penicillin inhibits the growth of staphylococci without destroying white blood cells. In a word, it behaves like a normal broth. It remained to clear it of a foreign protein in order to use it for injections. One of the best British chemists, Professor G. Raystrick, received strains from Fleming and grew "penicillium" not on a broth, but on a synthetic basis.
Global recognition
Fleming was experimenting in a hospital on the topical application of penicillin. In 1928 he was appointedprofessor of bacteriology at the university. Dr. Alexander Fleming continued to work on penicillin. But the research had to be suspended, his brother John died of pneumonia. The "magic bullet" from the disease was in the "broth" of penicillin, but no one could extract it from there.
In early 1939, Chain and Flory began studying penicillin at the Oxford Institute. They found a practical method for purifying penicillin, and finally, on May 25, 1940, the day came for a decisive test, on mice infected with strepto-, staphylococci and clostridium septicum. After 24 hours, only mice that had been injected with penicillin survived. The turn has come to test it on people.
The war began, a cure was needed, but it was necessary to find the strongest strain in order to produce penicillin on an industrial scale. On August 5, 1942, a close friend of Fleming's meningitis was brought to St. Mary's in a hopeless condition, and Alexander tested purified penicillin on him. On September 9, the patient was completely he althy.
In 1943, the production of penicillin was established at factories. And glory fell upon the silent Scot: he was elected a member of the Royal Society; in July 1944 the king awarded the title - he became Sir Fleming; in November 1945 he was awarded the title of doctor three times - in Liege, Louvain and Brussels. The University of Louvain then awarded doctoral degrees to three Englishmen: Winston Churchill, Alexander Fleming and Bernard Montgomery.
25 October Fleming received a telegram that he, Flory and Chain were awardedNobel Prize. But most of all, the scientist was pleased with the news that he became an honorary citizen of Darvel, the Scottish town where he graduated from school and from where he began his glorious path.
