Sir Alexander Fleming, Mason and discoverer of Penicillin
by Robert Morris
Editorial Staff, Trowel Magazine
Alexander Fleming was born on August 6, 1881, the second from last of eight children. The family farmstead was located near the town of Darvel in the county of Ayrshire near the southwestern coast Of Scotland. His father died when he was only seven, and at the age of 13 he was sent to London to live with an older brother, Thomas, who had become a physician there. He continued his education at the Regent Street Polytechnic School, and in 1897, at age 16, he became a clerk with an American shipping company in London.
The Boer War between Britain and the Dutch settlers in South Africa broke out in 1899 and lasted until 1902. To the British, in those days of Queen Victoria and the age of imperialism, it was indeed a patriotic war and instilled in many Britons a fervent desire to serve their country. Fleming was caught up in the fervor and enlisted in the reserves, joining the London Scottish Rifles Regiment in 1900 where he remained a member for the next 14 years. He was, however, never called up for service in South Africa.
In 1901, he received a small inheritance from his uncle and, influenced by his brother Thomas, enrolled in St. Mary's Hospital Medical School. Upon graduation, he joined the bacteriological department of that same hospital where he was to remain for the rest of his days.
When World War I broke out in 1914, Fleming served as a Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps, together with several staff members of the hospital who were drafted to serve in a wound research laboratory in France. During Fleming's tour of duty there, he saw at firsthand the horrors of war and studied extensively the effect of wounds on the human body. He noted that in almost all wound cases the damage done by a bullet or shrapnel was not nearly as fatal as the subsequent infection caused by dirt, debris, bits of uniform, and the unsanitary conditions around the wound. There was no such thing as a clean wound. Gangrene and infection set in and were the cause of more battle deaths than the wounds themselves. The contrast between pre- and post-penicillin days can never be overemphasized.
Fleming was completely aware of the fact that the human body has amazing, built-in, curative powers and that the antibodies in its own immune system can overcome most of the day-to-day ailments and bacterial infections which have always plagued mankind. He also knew that there were other, more serious, diseases which had no built-in defenses but were able to be overcome by inoculation and vaccination. There still remained, however, many serious diseases for which no cures had yet been found, and he was determined to devote his life to finding a solution to what he considered a major threat to mankind's future.
On his return from France, Fleming returned to his research at St. Mary's Hospital, having a yet additional incentive in searching for an up-to-then elusive antibiotic, and he persisted in his research with ever-increasing dedication and made progressive discoveries, learning more all the time. It was, however, not until 1928 that he finally achieved the breakthrough he felt had to happen eventually.
As a bacteriologist and researcher, his life and efforts were spent in his laboratory amid bacterial cultures, petri dishes, enzymes, serum, blood, test tubes, and microscopes. He had no sense of neatness, and his lab was constantly cluttered with experiments in various stages of development.
On one occasion in 1928, he had cultured a growth of staphylococcus bacteria and then gone on a two-week vacation. Upon returning, he discovered a growth of mold on the culture plate which had halted the growth of the bacteria. The mold had somehow blown in on the air and contaminated the plate. Fleming was able to isolate, study, and identify the mold as a variant of penicillium notatum which he named penicillin.
The following year, he published the results of his observations as to its antibiotic properties in a British medical journal. As a bacteriologist, though, he could only produce additional penicillin in extremely limited quantities. Although he fully realized the importance of his discovery, he felt frustrated knowing that the production of penicillin was as yet extremely limited and not available in sufficient quantities to help the general public. This frustration was brought
close to home when he was unable to help his own brother, John, who succumbed to pneumonia in 1937.
It took World War II, however, and England's need for reducing losses from infectious wounds, to finally stimulate the country into finding a way to further refine and mass produce this truly miraculous drug.
A team of scientists from Oxford University, specifically Ernst Chain, Howard Florey and others, were able to accomplish this, and by D-Day penicillin's use among the wounded had become widespread and was able to preserve untold numbers of lives.
Penicillin was indeed a major breakthrough in treatment of infectious war wounds, but even more importantly, it was a new cure for many other scourges of humanity, especially staphylococcus, pneumonia, gonorrhea, streptococcus, diphtheria, scarlet fever, meningitis, syphilis, and others for which effective cures had not previously existed. People of this generation now take antibiotics for granted and assume that their existence and use are natural. Everyone, however, should never forget that penicillin therapy is probably the greatest single medical advance in history. There isn't a person in the world who is not in Alexander Fleming's debt.
His altruistic ideals were of the highest, he never received a penny for his discovery, and he never felt that he should have. These ideals had always been with him, and early on he espoused the tenets of Masonry. During his years as a medical student at
St. Mary's, he became a Mason and, eventually, an active participant in several London Lodges including his Regiment's the London Scottish Rifles Lodge
No. 2310. He subsequently became Master of Sancta Maria Lodge No. 2682 in 1925 and, not knowing what spare time was, later served as its Secretary. In 1935, he became Master of Misericordia Lodge No. 3286, later serving as its Treasurer. By now his Masonic dedication had come to the attention of the Grand Lodge of England, and he was elected Senior Grand Deacon in 1942 and Grand Warden in 1948. This fraternal dedication was also recognized by Masonry outside Britain, and in 1953, he received the Distinguished Service Citation of the Grand Lodge of New York.
For by his efforts, dedication and ideals, the world has become his beneficiary. At the time of his death from a heart attack on March 11, 1955, at the age of 73, he had joined the ranks of those who belong to the ages. He had been a dedicated Freemason for 50 years and has forever earned his place beside the immortals of history.
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