Sir Alexander Fleming (6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955) was a
Scottish biologist and
pharmacologist. Fleming published many articles on bacteriology, immunology, and chemotherapy. His best-known achievements are the discovery of the
enzyme lysozyme in 1922 and the discovery of the
antibiotic substance
penicillin from the fungus
Penicillium notatum in 1928, for which he shared the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with
Florey and
Chain.
[1]Fleming was born on 6 August 1881 at Lochfield farm near Darvel in East Ayrshire, Scotland. He was the third of the four children of Hugh Fleming (1816 – 1888) from his second marriage to Grace Stirling Morton (1848 – 1928), the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. Hugh Fleming had four surviving children from his first marriage. He was 59 at the time of his second marriage, and died when Alexander (known as Alex) was seven.
Fleming went to Loudoun Moor School and Darvel School, and then for two years to Kilmarnock Academy. After working in a shipping office for four years, the twenty-year-old Fleming inherited some money from an uncle, John Fleming. (For the story about his father rescuing a boy, see the section fable). His older brother, Tom, was already a physician and suggested to his younger sibling that he follow the same career, and so in 1901, the younger Alexander enrolled at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, London. He qualified for the school with distinction in 1906 and had the option of becoming a surgeon.
By chance, however, he had been a member of the rifle club (he had been an active member of the Territorial Army since 1900). The captain of the club, wishing to retain Fleming in the team suggested that he join the research department at St Mary's, where he became assistant bacteriologist to Sir Almroth Wright, a pioneer in vaccine therapy and immunology. He gained M.B. and then B.Sc. with Gold Medal in 1908, and became a lecturer at St. Mary's until 1914. On 23 December 1915, Fleming married a trained nurse, Sarah Marion McElroy of Killala, Ireland.
