This image is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence
This image is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence
This image is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence
This image is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence
Sample of penicillin mould presented by Alexander Fleming to Douglas Macleod, 1935. Front three-quarter view, grey
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Science Museum Group
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London.
Science Museum Group
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London.
Science Museum Group
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London.
A sample of Penicillium mould presented by Alexander Fleming to Douglas Macleod, 1935.
The British biologist and pharmacologist Alexander Fleming gave this sample of the mould Penicillium notatum to a colleague at St Mary's Hospital, London, in 1935.
Seven years earlier, Fleming had discovered by chance that this species of mould produces a substance he called 'Penicillin' that was found to have powerful antibiotic properties. This sample marks penicillin's transition from an interesting phenomenon to a potential drug.
On display
Science Museum: Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries
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Related people
Details
- Category:
- Biotechnology
- Object Number:
- 1997-731
- Materials:
- copper alloy, leatherette, penicillium mould and wood
- type:
- penicillium mould, bioengineering and microbiology
- taxonomy:
-
- drug
- credit:
- Christie's South Kensington Limited
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