Howard Florey saw potential enemies everywhere, but with "friends" like A N Richards and Robert Coghill, he hardly need bother looking any further

Howard Florey's correspondence twice notes that he has just received a higher yielding strain of penicillium from America.

A full two years after Florey arrives at Peoria, the NRRL starts looking for new sources of penicillin strains..."Soon" ?

Penicillin: II. Natural Variation

and Penicillin Production in

Penicillium notatum and

Allied Species

If pollyanna historians says two years - in the middle of a war - is "soon" , then I guess it must be so.

Florey quickly flees the biology of NRRL Peoria for the chemical comforts of Merck

Howard Florey probably spent no more than a few hours of his whole life in the labs of the NRRL at Peoria, Illinois where most of the fruitful work that gave us the antibiotics revolution was actually done.

ROP on this penicillin milch cow is beyond astounding : and it is all down to lactose intolerance !

Ironic isn't it ? Hundreds of millions of people have enjoyed longer lives thanks to the lactose intolerance of some slimy little mold.