Talk:Alexander Fleming

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Contents

[edit] Dicovery of effects

Discoveries of anti-bacterial effects of penicilliumtimmeh moulds before Fleming I am placing this link on the top of this page, since the person who removed text here referred to Tyndall. This link might help that person understand the perspective. In "talk" pages, please refrain from removing discussions, since that is all it is. Users normally only see the article. DanielDemaret 11:21, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey guys, Fleming didn't isolate penicillin. Florey and Chain did. He just noted that the fungus was killing bacteria. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.132.234.202 (talk) 03:04, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

According to Brown, Fleming isolated it. Florey and Chain managed to 1 isolate 2 concentrate and 3 make an aq solution of it. Do you have any reference to the contrary, 130.132.234.202? DanielDemaret (talk) 14:44, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Daniel, it depends on your definition of "isolate." In his Nobel lecture, Fleming details how he used culture fluid from a culture growing Penicillium notatum to inhibit various bacteria. However, he never actually chemically isolated the active ingredient of the fluid.

I have at least two references which detail how Florey, Chain, and also Heatley were the ones who isolated penicillin.

"Three very different men [Florey, Chain, and Heatley], each a genius in his own field, fortuitously came together and isolated penicillin, a task that Fleming had been unable to accomplish."

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1891732


" He [Fleming] isolated the mold, grew it in a fluid medium, and found that it produced a substance capable of killing many of the common bacteria that infect humans. Australian pathologist Howard Florey and British biochemist Ernst Boris Chain isolated and purified penicillin in the late 1930s, and by 1941 an injectable form of the drug was available for therapeutic use."

-http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9059068/penicillin#800228.hook

I have changed the word "isolation" of penicillin to "discovery" of penicillin in the main article. I hope you will all agree. Ravinon (talk) 21:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Discovery is fine. He deduced that the fungus "Penicillium notatum" must have an active antibacterial substance, discovered the substance, isolated it and named it. I am not sure why one word would be more appropriate than the other. DanielDemaret (talk) 20:28, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Penicillin patent

Fleming did not patent his invention, falsely believing that this would help get the invention into the hands of the sick who desparately needed it. Because he did not have the means to bring it into production, the invention languished for many years unused while many people died. Thankfully, a penicillin patent was issued to Andrew Moyer that began to get this very useful drug into wide circulation.

This is is put in a rather POV fashion, and there's no evidence for this claim (and it doesn't tally with what I do know of the story of penicillin). Please provide some, and if the evidence justifies the conclusion then the claim can be reincorporated using appropriate language. --Robert Merkel 13:17, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Further to this, read this page on the penicillin patent, which pours a not insubstantial amount of cold water on this claim. I'm not claiming it's conclusive, but it's certainly persuasive. --Robert Merkel 13:23, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

According to Kevin Brown, (see ref) 1. He claimed that it did not occur to him. 2. No substance freely occuring in nature could be patented by the patent laws of that time.DanielDemaret 20:28, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Kevin Brown writes at great length about the patents, since there were several patents taken. Chain and Florey had not agreed on whether to patent their process. But later, first in the US, later in Britain by Moyer, all for different processes and for using different strains of different moulds. Most of the discussion was a about a heated debate of the US "stealing" inventions that were freely given by Great Britain for the benefit of the world. The story is complex, and if written, might be written in a separate article about that debate. DanielDemaret 20:38, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Winston Churchill

There is an email forward floating around that says that Alexander Fleming's father saved the son of a young nobleman from drowning in a bog and that the nobleman offered to pay for Alexander's education. The young nobleman's son was Winston Churchill. Is there any truth to any of that?

I guess it's false. check this out --Chatool 22:53, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Accolades

At the turn of the century (2000) here in Sweden, I saw 5 Major Newspapers/Magazines list the top 100 Heroes of the millenia, and Alexander Fleming came up on top in all of them. Surely this article could say more about this kind (POV - we have mutual aquaintances ) man? User:DanielDemaret

[edit] Treated Not w/Penicillin but M&B

This sentence concludes the Birth and Education section: "Alexander Fleming did however, save Winston Churchill himself during WWII, by flying to North Africa with penicillin, which was in very limited supply at the time." That statement doesn't seem to jibe w/the info on this page, which refutes the urban legend that Fleming twice saved Churchill's life: http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=102. Does anyone have the truth of the matter?

"Penniccilin Man", by Kevin Brown,

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0750931523/203-6687617-7055925 I think says differently, but I shall check this out before I re-edit it. And I suppose both claims should be entered for completeness. Regardless.... He saved Winston in both versions, so I think it should be included one way or another.DanielDemaret 12:02, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I just re-read the book, and corrected the text. Pity. It was such a good fable.DanielDemaret 19:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

after correction, I added a few ugly links. Let's see if I remember how to make a good links later. I have done links before, so one would think that I would remember how.DanielDemaret 20:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Kevin Brown has been Trust Archivist and Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum Curator, and St Mary's NHS Trust, Paddington since 1989. His book is almost over-filled with references. I think that his book on Fleming qualifies by any wikipedia standard.DanielDemaret 10:22, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

The speculation about why the fable turned out is my very own speculation. Is "not improbable", is that still too much POV?DanielDemaret 10:59, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rediscovery: We need better references

I can not find any reference for the claim that John Tyndall discovered it, and Ernest Duchesne should have better references. If no references can be found at all for John Tyndall, I shall remove the claim in a weeks time or so. In the meantime I shall try to find better references for both of them. DanielDemaret 18:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Got a good reference :) DanielDemaret 18:50, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First discoveries

I have put in so many "first discoveries" , inspired by JMcc, that this section will soon be in need of a sub-article, so that other articles can refer to that instead of repeating the same stories. DanielDemaret 08:58, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re-discovery

I have changed Re-discovery of to Discovery, since he did indeed discover the substance.

What predates him was the discovery of the anti-bacterial effects of the MOULD, not the substance.

The discovery of the mould itself propably predates history.DanielDemaret 19:26, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fragment sentence?

He was very well known for making penecilin. (in Fable paragraph) is imho fragment, doesn't really go with the text. Can I remove it??

Thanks for noticing that - I've removed it, as it is indeed a random little fragment someone has dumped into the article, clearly without bothering to read the article first. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:40, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First successful use

The article currently claims:

In 1933 he dramatically cured his research assistant, Keith Rogers, of conjunctivitis [1] and suddenly he had a notable clinical case to show that might interest a chemist to further pursue the goal of developing a stable form of penicillin.

I could only find one source—that was not a copy of the existing Wikipedia entry—that claimed successful use of penicillin by Fleming (and it lists a different year, 1932). Fleming’s Nobel Prize bio does not mention any such use, and according to the paper Post Penicillin Antibiotics Fleming and Rogers did not work together until 1935.
The source sited in the Fleming article, only uses the phrase “probably the first” to describe his treatment with penicillin, and does not give a year. All of this suggests that the 1930s claim was either seen as apocryphal or inconclusive by the medical community, whereas the 1942-03-14 case (see Penicillin) was widely sited and led the way for successful use of penicillin in WWII.
—MJBurrage • TALK • 06:47, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] What's this Cashen name?

Is it vandalism that changed Alexander Fleming into Alexander Cashen in many places in this article?

[edit] Fact or Fiction?

I remember hearing a story about in Femming's lab that when he was producing it and being careless in nature, he contaminated a tennnis ball and his dog got a hold of it and spread it all over the place and that's why it can be present outdoors and stuff. is this true? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.209.147.181 (talk) 16:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Alexander Fleming- R-C9H11N2O4S, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.94.84.22 (talk) 17:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why Vandalism?

I'm curious - what is it about Fleming that attracts so much vandalism to his Wiki page? Halmyre (talk) 20:18, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

My *guess* would have been that this is one of the articles that is referenced more than average, that is all. "Voronai Tessalonations" would get fewer vandals, simply because few people know about it. Perhaps if there are statistics on this someone might verify this? DanielDemaret (talk) 22:14, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

do change these pages —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.245.165.252 (talk) 22:55, 26 April 2008 (UTC)