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Alexander Fleming: 2 ideas worth knowing

2 ideas from Alexander Fleming, each explained in a minute and credited to the original work. Free on Savvy.

• Penicillin was discovered because a scientist forgot to clean up before holiday

  In 1928, Alexander Fleming left a stack of bacterial cultures uncovered while away, and returned to find mould had killed the bacteria growing around it. He nearly discarded the co…

  — Alexander Fleming, On the Antibacterial Action of Cultures of a Penicillium

• The discoverer of penicillin warned of antibiotic resistance before it was ever a crisis

  Accepting the 1945 Nobel Prize for discovering penicillin, Alexander Fleming warned that giving patients too little of the drug, or stopping treatment too early, could let the hard…

  — Alexander Fleming, Penicillin (Nobel Lecture)

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