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Examples of Scientists - Alexander Fleming and Penicillin

I'm recovering from a cold. I'm so full of penicillin that, if I sneeze, I'll cure someone - Tommy Cooper -

Index

Alexander Fleming's background

What makes Alexander Fleming such a great example?

Alexander Fleming's background

Alexander Fleming was a Scottish bacteriologist and pharmacologist who, in September 1928, returned from holiday to find a mould had contaminated a discarded culture plate of Staphylococcus bacteria in his cluttered laboratory at St Mary's Hospital, London, and that the bacteria around the mould had been killed off. The mould turned out to be Penicillium notatum, and the substance it produced, which Fleming named penicillin, became the world's first true antibiotic. He shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, who later developed the substance into a usable drug.

What makes Alexander Fleming such a great example?

Birth of Alexander Fleming

Alexander Fleming is a classic astrological example of the accidental discovery: a moment of ordinary carelessness [leaving a culture plate uncovered] that, thanks to Fleming's own trained observation, turned into one of the most valuable finds in medical history. It makes a good test of whether a chart can show discovery through chance rather than design.

The chart shown is Alexander Fleming's birthchart, together with transits for his discovery of penicillin in September 1928, guessed at midday, around the outside. Aspect lines [traditional] are between the transits and his birthchart.