Medicine

Key Takeaways The 13-Year Gap: Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928; it didn't reach patients until 1941. More soldiers may have died from this delay than in many battles. The Funding Failure: British institutions refused to fund penicillin development. It took American industrial capacity to scale production. The Mold Hunt: The penicillin strain that saved millions came from a moldy cantaloupe in an Illinois grocery store. The Credit War: Fleming got the Nobel Prize and the fame; Florey and Chain did the actual life-saving work. The Uncomfortable Truth: War accelerates medical progress because peacetime bureaucracies are designed to prevent risk, not save lives. The Thirteen-Year Wait In 1928, Alexander Fleming returned from vacation to find mold growing on his petri dishes. Around the mold, bacteria had died. He had discovered antibiotics. ...

The Secret Life of Ordinary Objects ← Series Home The Pursuit of Purity: How Industrial Ingenuity Transformed Sickness and Sanitation The history of the modern world is inextricably linked to rising standards of health and hygiene—a revolution that has conquered disease, extended lifespans, and fundamentally redefined cleanliness. For millennia, human attempts to combat illness, pain, and filth were characterized by guesswork, ritual, and a hit-or-miss approach to natural remedies. Ancient societies were often on the verge of discovery—the Romans knew the value of fresh water, the Sumerians knew a simple antacid worked—but lacked the scientific framework and industrial capacity to harness that knowledge universally. ...