Alexander Fleming Timeline

In a 1917 article published in The Lancet, Fleming described an ingenious experiment, enabled by his own glassblowing skills, explaining why antiseptics were killing more soldiers than infection itself during the war.

Image source: The Lancet

In late 1921, while Fleming was maintaining agar plates for bacteria, he found that one of the plates was contaminated with bacteria from the air, leading to his lysozyme research.

Image source: Lysozyme

Fleming discovered the enzyme lysozyme from his own nasal discharge in 1922, along with a bacterium he named Micrococcus lysodeikticus, later renamed Micrococcus luteus.

Reporting in the 1 May 1922 issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B under the title 'On a remarkable bacteriolytic element found in tissues and secretions', Fleming described a substance capable of rapidly dissolving certain bacteria.

By 1927, Fleming had been investigating the properties of staphylococci, laying groundwork for his famous discovery the following year.

Image source: Staphylococcus aureus

In 1928, Fleming studied the variation of Staphylococcus aureus grown under natural conditions, after the work of Joseph Warwick Bigger, who discovered that the bacterium could grow into a variety of types.

At the Royal Society of Medicine meeting on 18 October 1932, Fleming said he chose lysozyme as his subject because its importance in connection with natural immunity did not seem to be generally appreciated.

Image source: Royal Society of Medicine

The species Micrococcus lysodeikticus, discovered by Fleming alongside lysozyme, was reassigned as Micrococcus luteus in 1972.

Image source: Micrococcus luteus

Fleming gave some of his original penicillin samples to his colleague-surgeon Arthur Dickson Wright for clinical testing in 1928.

Image source: Clarissa Dickson Wright

On 3 September 1928, Fleming returned to his laboratory having spent a holiday with his family at Suffolk, where he noticed a mould contaminating a staphylococci culture plate.

Image source: History of penicillin

Fleming later recalled waking just after dawn on September 28, 1928, saying he certainly didn't plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic, or bacteria killer.

Fleming published his discovery in 1929 in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology, but little attention was paid to the article.

Image source: Discovery of penicillin

A treatment using penicillin started on 9 January 1929 but without any effect.

Fleming presented his discovery on 13 February 1929 before the Medical Research Club.

Image source: Medical Research Council (United Kingdom)

After some months of calling it 'mould juice' or 'the inhibitor', Fleming gave the name penicillin on 7 March 1929 for the antibacterial substance present in the mould.

Image source: Penicillin

Fleming cured eye infections (conjunctivitis) of one adult and three infants (neonatal conjunctivitis) on 25 November 1930.

Image source: Neonatal conjunctivitis

Fleming also successfully treated severe conjunctivitis in 1932, though some colleagues claimed he had abandoned penicillin around this time.

Image source: Conjunctivitis

As late as 1939, Fleming's notebook shows attempts to make better penicillin production using different media, continuing efforts begun years earlier.

After the Oxford team developed a method of purifying penicillin to an effective first stable form in 1940, several clinical trials ensued, inspiring methods for mass production by 1945.

Image source: Howard Florey

Shortly after the Oxford team published its first results in 1940, Fleming telephoned Howard Florey, Chain's head of department, to say that he would be visiting within the next few days.

In 1941, Fleming published a method for assessment of penicillin effectiveness.

In August 1942, Harry Lambert, an associate of Fleming's brother Robert, was admitted to St Mary's Hospital due to a life-threatening streptococcal meningitis infection, which Fleming treated successfully with penicillin.

Image source: Group B streptococcal infection

The War Cabinet was convinced of penicillin's usefulness, upon which Sir Cecil Weir, Director General of Equipment, called for a meeting on the mode of action on 28 September 1942.

Image source: War cabinet

Fleming published the clinical case of Harry Lambert's successful treatment in The Lancet in 1943.

The Penicillin Committee was created on 5 April 1943 to coordinate wartime production of the drug.

By D-Day in 1944, enough penicillin had been produced to treat all the wounded of the Allied troops.

Image source: Normandy landings

Upon Moyer patenting the method of penicillin production in the United States in 1944, Fleming was furious, commenting that he had given penicillin free for the benefit of humanity and asking why it should become a profit-making monopoly of manufacturers in another country.

Image source: Andrew J. Moyer

On 26 June 1945, Fleming made cautionary statements warning that 'the microbes are educated to resist penicillin and a host of penicillin-fast organisms is bred out', anticipating antibiotic resistance.

Image source: Antimicrobial resistance

The source of the fungal contaminant that led to penicillin's discovery was established in 1966 as coming from La Touche's room, directly below Fleming's laboratory.

Image source: Penicillium rubens

Fleming was knighted for his scientific achievements in 1944.

Fleming shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Howard Florey and Ernst Chain 'for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases'.

Image source: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

In his Nobel lecture on 11 December 1945, Fleming briefly mentioned lysozyme, saying 'Penicillin was not the first antibiotic I happened to discover.'

Fleming's alma mater, St Mary's Hospital Medical School, merged with Imperial College London in 1988.

Image source: Imperial College London

The Sir Alexander Fleming Building on the South Kensington campus opened in 1998, where his son Robert and great-granddaughter Claire were presented to the Queen; it is now a main preclinical teaching site of Imperial College School of Medicine.

Image source: Alexander Fleming

In 1999, Fleming was named in Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century.

Image source: Time 100

In 2002, Fleming was included in the BBC's television poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

Image source: 100 Greatest Britons

In 2009, Fleming was voted third 'greatest Scot' in an opinion poll conducted by STV, behind only Robert Burns and William Wallace.

Image source: STV (TV channel)