Text Е. Alexander Fleming

Alexander Fleming was born in 1881. He did research work at one of the hospitals in London and became interested in bacterial action and antibacterial drugs.

One day Fleming's assistant brought him a plate on which some dangerous bacteria were being grown. "This plate cannot be used for the experiment," said the assistant. "Some mould [mould] (плесень) has formed on it and I'll have to take another plate." Fleming was ready to allow his assistant to do so. Then he looked at the plate and saw that the bacteria around the mould had disappeared. Fleming understood the importance of what had happened and immediately began to study the phenomenon.

He placed some mould on other plates and grew more colonies. By means of numerous experiments on animals he determined that this new substance was not toxic to the tissues and stopped the growth of the most common pathogenic bacteria.

Fleming called this substance penicillin. It is of the same family of moulds that often appear on dry bread.

But many investigations had been carried out before a method of extracting pure penicillin was found. It was also very difficult for Fleming to interest biologists and mould experts in penicillin and to decide the problem of its production.

In 1942 Fleming tried his own first experiment. A friend of his was very ill, dying. After several injections of penicillin the man was cured. It marked the beginning of penicillin treatment.

Fleming received the Nobel Prize for his great discovery. But he said: "Everywhere I go people thank me for saving their lives. I do not know why they do it. I didn't do anything. Nature makes penicillin. I only found it."

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