1945, the Royal Swedish Medical College decided to award this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine to Flory, Laiming and Qian En. In the acceptance speech, the discovery of penicillin was called "the most valuable contribution in the history of modern medicine", and it was particularly emphasized that it was "an outstanding example of cooperation between different scientific methods for the same goal."
Before 1930s, human beings often suffered from germs. Many people often die from being infected by germs. But doctors at that time knew little about these germs, and they were helpless in the face of the disease and could only watch the patient die.
Alexander, a British bacteriologist at St. Mary's Medical College, University of London? Fleming hopes that his scientific research can change this situation. For more than ten years, he has been devoted to exploring ways to eliminate germs and developing drugs to kill these deadly enemies. 1928 In the summer, Fleming discovered that the secretion of a green mold could effectively kill malignant staphylococci. He called this green mold Penicillium, and the secretion of Penicillium was named penicillin.
At a party, Fleming told a great English man about his discovery. The great man kindly suggested, "Fleming, here's your chance to get rich." Think about it, how much will this penicillin be used in medicine in the future? You should apply for the patent right to manufacture penicillin as soon as possible. From now on, you and your family will never have to worry about their livelihood as they do now. "
At that time, Fleming's family was very tired and often needed the help of relatives, so Fleming was moved by the great man's advice. But after some consideration, he refused the proposal. In his letter to the great man, he wrote: "I can't bear to endanger the lives of countless people intentionally or unintentionally for the sake of the prosperity of myself and my family."
Fleming knew that it was impossible for him to extract penicillin from the filtrate with very little content and make it into a medicine for clinical use, but it also required the joint efforts of many scientists. Therefore, he did not hesitate to publish his findings in the Royal Journal of Experimental Pathology, and called on more scientists to participate in this research.
British pathologist Hu (Ⅱ) Walter? Walter. Flory has also been studying natural antibacterial substances. He has always advocated the need for close cooperation between scholars of different disciplines. After Fleming's discovery was announced, Flory decided to cooperate with the brilliant German biochemist ernst boris chain to conduct a systematic study on penicillin.
From 1939, under the auspices of Flory, a group of enthusiastic scientists voluntarily formed an experimental research team. Bacteriologists Gardner and Saunders are in charge of penicillin culture, and Ernst Boris ernst boris chain is in charge of extracting penicillin from the filtrate. Sandoz also developed a simple method to determine the content of penicillin. The content of penicillin in the culture medium is very small, and it takes several tons of filtrate to get a little penicillin. Scientists have to wash hundreds of large glass bottles every day, cultivate more than ten tons of culture solution, inoculate, separate and dry ... This work is very hard. But scientists are not bitter, because they know that once penicillin preparation is developed, it will bring good news to the whole human society.
1940, Flory and others finally got the original penicillin product, and its bactericidal ability was unprecedented. At this time, a seriously infected patient was admitted to a nearby hospital and was unconscious when he was taken to the hospital. Although the doctor tried his best to rescue him and used a lot of medicine, it still had no effect. Flory slowly injected penicillin solution into the patient's vein, and the patient soon woke up and his temperature gradually returned to normal. Later, they treated a group of patients infected by staphylococcus with penicillin products, and all the patients recovered quickly.
However, the penicillin extracted from Penicillium is too small to meet the medical needs. In order to find high-yield strains and solve the problem of too little penicillin content, Flory and others rushed around and separated hundreds of mold samples from soil, garbage dumps and moldy food in various places, and studied and compared them one by one. Everything comes to him who waits. They found high-yield and excellent strains on the watermelon skin in the trash can, which doubled the output of penicillin. At the same time, they further studied and improved the extraction method, and constantly improved the purity of penicillin products, making them become clinical drugs.
With the mass production and wide application of penicillin, many malignant diseases can no longer be rampant (chāng), and countless patients facing death threats have been saved, especially during the Second World War, penicillin cured thousands of patients. People unanimously called penicillin, the atomic bomb and radar the three great inventions in the Second World War.