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Alexander Fleming Laboratory, London

Fleming Laboratory at St Mary's Hospital, third floor, corner window.

 

The career of Alexander Fleming illustrates the wisdom that life shouldn't be too tidy. He moved to London from Scotland in 1895 and worked as a shipping clerk, a job which he hated. Then an inheritance from an uncle allowed him to train as a doctor, and he chose St Mary's, not because it offered a great research tradition, but because it had a good water polo team. He arrived at St Mary's Hospital in 1901 and enrolled in the medical school there. Young Alexander was highly regarded, and in 1908 it seemed he might become a surgeon. But, surprising as it may seem there was no immediate vacancy for the man who had won the University of London Gold Medal for the best medical student of 1908. The sporty Alexander Fleming, happened to be a member of the hospital rifle club, and the president of the rifle club wished to retain Alexander, and suggested that he join the research department at St Mary's. This might not seem a good way to decide on a career, but Alexander Fleming joined the research team.

During the First World War Fleming served in the Army Medical Corps, and his experiences of watching soldiers die from infected wounds motivated his efforts in finding antibacterial agents. He realised that our relationship with bacteria is a complicated one. The antiseptics placed on wounds during the war killed the body's defensive cells as powerfully as they killed invading bacteria. He had to watch doctors using antiseptics when it was clear they were useless, or were actually making things worse. People have a powerful desire to do something about an injury, even when doing nothing is the best course. Even today antiseptic creams which have no value are regularly sold in chemist shops. When I scrape a knee I wash it, keep it clean, and think of Fleming.

The highpoint of Fleming's career came in 1928. On the 3rd of September, after returning from a holiday, he noticed a petri dish containing Staphylococci which had been put in a sink ready for washing before going on holiday. Mould was growing in the petri dish, and around the mould all the Staphyloccocci were dead. Fleming realised that something in the mould must be killing the bacteria. It has been suggested that it was Fleming's natural messiness which allowed this discovery to happen. If he had washed up before going on holiday the mould would never have grown. Standing in what appeared to be his orderly lab I asked the ladies who work at the Fleming Museum, and who had met him, whether they thought he was messy. In some ways it seems he was fastidious. He wouldn't allow the lab window to be opened, wanting to prevent all kinds of unknown foreign bodies from Praed Street getting in and landing on his petri dishes. So the idea that the spore blew in through the window seems to be a myth. But Fleming was "a boffin" to use my guide's words. He was vague, and was quite likely to be the sort of person not to conscientiously do his washing up. Also there was a lab just below Fleming's where work was being done on moulds, so the crucial mould spore probably derived from there.

Fleming extracted the active agent from the mould, called Penicillium notatum, and called it penicillin. There were practical difficulties in producing penicillin in large quantities. Shortly before the Second World War a research team in Oxford, led by Howard Florey, began work on penicillin. By February 1941 they had enough penicillin to start treating an Oxford policeman who contracted a potentially fatal infection from a scratch while gardening. It is difficult to believe now that a scratch could end a life, but that's how things were before this drug was available. The policeman, Albert Alexander, responded well, but sadly supplies of penicillin ran out, and although the team even tried extracting penicillin from his urine, he died.

Florey and his colleague Norman Heatley then moved to the Northern Regional Research Laboratories at Peoria, Illinois, escaping the wartime conditions that made work so difficult in Britain. There they discovered a faster growing strain of mould on a rotting melon in a Peoria market. This, combined with deep tank fermentation techniques, meant that large scale production of penicillin was finally possible. This was a turning point in medicine. The lives of millions of people were saved by penicillin, and by the antibiotics that came after it.

The laboratory used by Alexander Fleming has been recreated at St Mary's Hospital in Praed Street, Paddington, London.

There is an education programme, involving videos and a display. Staff will visit schools and give talks on Fleming's work.

Opening Times: The laboratory is open 10am - 1pm, Monday to Thursday, except on public holidays.

Directions: The nearest Undergound station is Paddington. As you come out of the station cross over Praed Street in front of you and turn right. St Mary's Hospital is a couple of hundred yards along Praed Steet. Go through the main entrance and follow signs. If a guide isn't present in the reception room ring the bell on the wall. Click here for an interactive road and satellite map centredon theAlexanderFleming Laboratory.

Access: wheelchair access is not possible.

Contact:

telephone: 020 7886 6528

 

Whilst in London why not enjoy a visit to one of the many musical theatre shows or plays available.