09/29/2026
An important day indeed ๐ฌ
On this date in history, September 28, 1928, a bit of untidiness led to one of the most important discoveries in medicine.
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๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐๐น๐ฒ๐บ๐ถ๐ป๐ด returned to his laboratory at St. Maryโs Hospital, London, after a holiday and noticed an unusual mould growing on a culture plate of ๐ฆ๐๐ฎ๐ฝ๐ต๐๐น๐ผ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐๐. Around the mould was a clear zone where the bacteria had failed to grow, suggesting that the mould was producing an antibacterial substance.
Fleming identified the mould as belonging to the genus ๐ฃ๐ฒ๐ป๐ถ๐ฐ๐ถ๐น๐น๐ถ๐๐บ and initially referred to the antibacterial substance as โmould juice.โ He later named it penicillin. His findings were published in 1929, demonstrating its ability to inhibit the growth of several bacteria.
Although Flemingโs discovery was groundbreaking, penicillin was difficult to extract, purify, and produce in sufficient quantities. More than a decade later, Howard Florey, Ernst Chain, and their colleagues developed methods for producing and purifying penicillin on a larger scale, enabling its clinical use, particularly during World War II.
Penicillin primarily acts by inhibiting bacterial cell-wall synthesis, preventing susceptible bacteria from maintaining cell-wall integrity. In 1945, Fleming, Florey, and Chain were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in infectious diseases.
