Glass bottle of penicillin powder
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Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Penicillin, by Kemball, Bishop & Co., in a glass container with cork stopper, 1943. Label attached.
A brown label that once accompanied this bottle of penicillin powder read “Penicillin 1943 from a batch brewed by Kemball Bishop & Co brought to Oxford by truck and extracted in the plant”.
Once penicillin’s potential was discovered, vast amounts were needed. Kemball Bishop & Co was one of the very first manufacturers of the drug. It carried out the first stage of production, manufacturing a weak impure solution which was then purified at Oxford University. This process produced some of the first penicillin to be tested for its clinical effects. The brown-yellow colour is due to impurities in the sample.
Details
- Category:
- Biotechnology
- Object Number:
- 1964-458/3
- Materials:
- drug, glass, cork, cotton tape, cotton string and paper
- Measurements:
-
overall: 100 mm x 46 mm x 46 mm, 0.1 kg
- type:
- penicillin
- credit:
- Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, Oxford
