Alexander Fleming is known for discovering the first antibiotic in his lab in 1928. This Scottish scientist was growing bacteria on agar plates. Being a very busy man and a bit slapdash at that, his lab was a bit of a state and, story has it, he left the lid off some of his plates (tut tut) and promptly forgot about them. When he was having a bit of a spring clean, he noticed that a mould had started to grow on one of the plates. On closer inspection, he discovered that around the mould, all of the bacteria had died. It seemed that the mould was making a substance that was killing the bacteria. Fleming went on to show that the mould was Penicillium notatum and thus he named the antibiotic substance penicillin. Despite his best efforts he was unable to purify enough to prove conclusively that penicillin was a safe and effective antibiotic. It wasn't until the 1940s that two scientists called Howard Florey and Ernst Chain found a way to extract large quantities of penicillin. Their work saved the lives of thousands of injured soldiers in WWII, and has gone on to revolutionise modern medicine. In 1945, Fleming, Florey and Chain were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Not bad for being a bit messy!
This is Edward Jenner, a doctor who worked during the late 18th Century. At this time, a dreadful disease called smallpox was not only very common but also deadly. Jenner noticed that milkmaids who worked with cows didn't get smallpox: instead they got a harmless disease called cowpox. This seemed to make them immune to smallpox. Jenner put his theory to the test by experimenting...on an 8 year old boy! He took pus from a cowpox spot and scratched it into the arm of the child, James Phipps. James went on to develop cowpox. Weeks later, Jenner gave James a second inoculation, but this time with pus containing smallpox. Miraculously James didn't get smallpox - the first inoculation with cowpox had protected him! Thus, vaccinations were born. These days smallpox has been eradicated worldwide and Jenner's work has saved the lives of more people than anyone else in the world!
Watch his story here
Watch his story here