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CLUE #4:�A good excuse not to wash up�En bra anledning till att inte diska

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Discovery  of Penicillin by Alexander Fleming

(1881-1955)

�Darvel, Ayrshire (Scotland)

One of 8 children his father had. Father died when he was 7.

Farming family. Had to work 4 years until he inherited money and started studying medicine 1903.

�Began researching bacteriology in London. Had a very messy laboratory.

Fleming served throughout World War I as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Needed an antibiotic.

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Discovered penicillin 1928

�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. Many were contaminated and mouldy but one was different.

The new mould had killed the bacteria around it in the dish! 

Fleming famously said: "That's funny"  

He had discovered penicillin.

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Not mass produced until 1944 when U.S. and UK governments funded Florey & Chain research. Enough made to treat all allied forces.

Shared Nobel Prize 1945.

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CLUE #5�It all started on Baker Street.