Alexander fleming family

Alexander Fleming ()

Famous for:

Discovering the antibiotic penicillin
Researching the antiseptic properties of lysozyme.

Fleming played a key role in the development of modern antibiotics.

His research and observations led to the development of penicillin &#; generally considered to be one of the most important advances in medical history.

Humble beginnings

Fleming was born on 6 August at Lochfield Farm, near Darvel in Ayrshire.

Alec, as he was known, was the second youngest of seven siblings.

He enjoyed a poor but happy childhood with a love of the outdoors.

Alexander fleming science biography wikipedia free He was the third of four children in his family. His mother, Grace Stirling Morton, was his father's second wife, and he had four half-siblings from his father's previous marriage. Fleming's father remarried at the age of 59 and passed away when Alexander was seven years old. He then moved to London and enrolled at the Royal Polytechnic Institution. After working for four years at a transport company, Fleming inherited his uncle John's money.

Although his father died when he was seven, his mother continued to run the farm.

Alec attended primary school at Loudon Moor and Darvel before going on to Kilmarnock Academy. He enjoyed his school days. This is despite a playground accident that left him looking like a boxer for the rest of his life!

Medical degree in London

When Fleming was 13, he moved to London to live with his brother who was a doctor.

He took a job with a shipping office as a clerk, which he found very dull.

When he was 20 years old, Fleming inherited a small sum of money from an uncle. He used this to follow his brother into the medical profession.

Fleming studied at St Mary's Medical School and was closely associated with this institution for the rest of his life.

Alexander fleming science biography wikipedia Lochfield, Ayrshire, Scotland, 6 August ; d. London, England, 11 March Late in life he achieved retrospective fame for discovering penicillin in Descended from Lowland farmers, Alexander was the third of four children born to Grace Morton, second wife of Hugh Fleming. Four children of the first marriage survived.

Naturally very bright and a quick learner, he completed his medical degree and won almost every prize and medal available.

Almroth Wright's influence

Head of the Inoculation Department at St Mary's was Almroth Wright. Wright, one of Fleming's mentors, asked him to stay on at the hospital after completing his studies.

A pioneering figure in medical research, Wright believed that vaccines and immunisation held the key to the treatment of infectious diseases.

He had a strong influence on Fleming.

Treating the war wounded

During the First World War, Fleming and others were based in Boulogne.

Alexander fleming science biography wikipedia full

British Broadcasting Corporation Home. Alexander Fleming was born in Ayrshire on 6 August , the son of a farmer. He moved to London at the age of 13 and later trained as a doctor. After the war, he returned to St Mary's. In , while studying influenza, Fleming noticed that mould had developed accidentally on a set of culture dishes being used to grow the staphylococci germ.

They were involved in the treatment of the wounded from battlefields.

Fleming would have seen men with horrific wounds already badly infected. Infected wounds had to be amputated because antiseptics didn't work.

Existing medicines also failed to stop the flu epidemic of claiming many lives.

Discovery of penicillin

After the war, Fleming discovered and proved the natural antiseptic power of the enzyme he called 'lysozyme'.

Six years later, he identified a germ-killing mould &#; one of a group known as 'Penicillium' &#; but was unable to enlist the help of research chemists to take this work further.

In , a team based at Oxford, which included Howard Florey, Ernst Chain and Norman Heatley, was successful in purifying penicillin. Pharmaceutical companies eventually took an interest, and the commercial production of penicillin as an antibiotic began.

The discovery of antibiotics became a great milestone in the history of medicine.

Scientist biography Through research and experimentation, Fleming discovered a bacteria-destroying mold which he would call penicillin in , paving the way for the use of antibiotics in modern healthcare. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in and died on March 11, His parents, Hugh and Grace were farmers, and Alexander was one of their four children. He also had four half-siblings who were the surviving children from his father Hugh's first marriage. Fleming was a member of the Territorial Army and served from to in the London Scottish Regiment.

Today penicillin is used to treat all kinds of bacterial infections.

Awards and honours

In Florey and Fleming were knighted. Fleming, Florey and Chain were awarded the Nobel prize for medicine in , in acknowledgement of their work on penicillin.

Fleming became a celebrity, giving lectures all over the world and receiving honours.

However he always acknowledged that it was Florey and Chain who had turned penicillin into a practical drug.

Careful not to exaggerate what he had done, Fleming stated: 'Nature makes penicillin; I just found it'.

Later years

Fleming's first wife Sarah died in They had been married for 34 years and had one son, Robert.

In , Fleming married Greek research assistant Amalia Voureka Coutsouris.

They lived together happily until Fleming died suddenly of a heart attack aged

He was buried in London's St Paul's Cathedral in

In our public poll, Alexander Fleming was voted the fifth most popular Scottish scientist from the past.