The re-invention of a military-only antiseptic into "bedside penicillin for all" creates a global beacon of hope for a world at war

the tiny stone the builders rejected

Despite the self-centred claims of physicists, the greatest benefits to humanity have generally been ardently pursued (invented), not accidentally stumbled upon (discovered).

DNA was discovered in 1860s by an Swiss doctor, but for most of us, it was really only discovered 125 years later in the late 1980s.

That was when it began to first be successfully used to solve unsolved criminal cases, when British researcher Alec Jeffries re-invented 'DNA' as a means to definitely identify biological evidence left at the scene of a crime.

Florey vs Dawson : penicillin to be perfect & a war medicine OR an imperfect but universal medicine ?

Baby Patty Malone helped the whole world discover penicillin 

As should be well known, penicillin-the-molecule and penicillin-the-lifesaver were discovered September 1943 by the whole world, (not in September 1928 by Alexander Fleming) while natural-penicillin-the-universal-livesaver was invented on October 16th 1940 by Henry Dawson.

For Howard Florey's mausoleum of an institute, penicillin's therapeutic value was incidental to putting paying bums on seats

Howard Florey's discovery that impure natural penicillin could cure experimentally induced infections in mice was incidental to his number one concern : getting enough paying guests in his mausoleum of an institute, to pay its annual heating bills.

Sulfa's Alexander Fleming : Paul Gelmo, winner of 1939 medical Nobel for discovery of Sulfa

Sulfa the MIRACLE drug

Alas Paul Gelmo , discoverer of Sulfa, is not likely to ever be as famous as Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin and it is a mystery worth investigating to ask why not.

Florey family and PATENTS :ducks and water

In the reverential biographies of  Howard Florey ( he has never had a critical biography - I hope to inspire one of them though), he is always played as the anti-patent guy on penicillin.

By contrast, Ernst Chain is always played as the greedy pro-patent guy.

Well, he is Jewish after all - he would be the greedy  money-grubbing one, won't he ?

Edward Abraham, who was there at the time, says that both were pro-patent to a degree - seeking Oxford University to control it ,(as the University of Toronto did insulin).

I agree.

The assumption was made that because Chain's father was in some sort of chemistry business in Germany Chain the PhD chemist would know all about the importance of patents.

(But we don't actually know if his father was involved in patents.)

But Florey ,the MD, would not anything about patents - against MD ethics in the UK at the time. Etc.

Bull dung !

Florey-the-son had wanted to be a chemist and was only nominally a MD in reality anyway.

His father had made his fortune by being the first into a new cutting edge technology, the first into high tech chemistry and trade marks, and by being the first in his state to obtain exclusive geographic rights to new processes.

Joseph Florey even tried to obtain at least one patent himself - for improvements in pneumatic tyres - applied for in Western Australia on May 16 1996, according to the local daily paper.

Leather making technology hadn't changed in around 10,000 years - so when it did, many in the industry refused to take the first leap.

Beyond how technically challenging the new ways of tanning leather were, was the fact that they were not public domain and free, as the tannin way of leather-making had been for centuries.

Florey took both risks and fell into a hot area of patents and licenses and paying high fees - or ignoring patents and fees and focussing on trade marks instead.

His many ads never claimed he had a patent for his chromella leather or even a patent license with a registered number - merely that he was the exclusive South Australia agent for it and held control of it as a trademark.

I haven't been able to find the original owner of chromella leather, but I believe very much they existed.

Here is why:

Florey's very first time he is mentioned in any newspaper seems to have been the month (October 1894) - even the day - he got that exclusive agency for chromella and he took out ads proclaiming that fact.

The word chromella almost never left the Australian papers, in some form or other, until well after his death.

His wealth seemed to have started around 1894 as well.

Having that chromella agency really seemed to have mattered.

But Joseph Florey having interests in tyres and patents of his own was news to me.

Patent talk would have been mother's milk to his son, Howard.

And I think we all owe Chain a heartfelt apology....

Why stop at THREE mold samples...

...when  four would feel oh so good?

In 1970,Lennard Bickel, using information from Gladys Hobby, says that Martin Henry Dawson and Karl Meyer used a sample of Alexander Fleming's penicillin-producing strain received from Roger Reid in Baltimore to deliver History's first jab of antibiotics October 16 1940, before a sample of  Ernest Chain's strain of penicillin-producing mold arrived from England via the wartime postal service.

Chain's sample - if it even was penicillium notatum - turned red and gave off no penicillin.

This story was repeated by Hobby in her 1985 definitive book on the wartime development of penicillin ---- and by most penicillin authors ever since.

Reid had originally got his penicillin strain in November 1930 from Charles Thom, the world expert on penicillium strains.

Who had gotten his sample from Harold Raistrick who got his from Fleming who got it as a contaminant in the air drifting upwards from the lab of LaTouche who scrapped it off a basement wall of somebody very rich in Belgravia.

(Finally !

The idle rich do something useful.....)

On July 9th 1941, Howard Florey visited Charles Thom who says that HM Dawson ( ie MH Dawson) contacted him directly to get a sample of Fleming's strain, after Chain's strains arrived in late October 1941.

So Dawson contacted at least three people that Fall of 1940 for a good penicillin-producung strain of the mold : Chain, Reid, Thom.

Why not then Alexander Fleming ???

Why not go to the Source, the Mother Load ?

This might account for Fleming's boss (Dr Wright) knowing all about penicillin-making at New York's Columbia University in March 1941, as referenced in Dr John Hedley-Whyte's account.

Dawson had meet Fleming at least twice, for sure --  in 1936 and 1939 when both were high poo-pahs in International Microbiology Congresses.

Anyone got any opinions on this ??