Penicillin was found by accident when a mould killed the bacteria in a dish Alexander Fleming had left out

historyWikipedia1928 · London, England

Penicillin was found by accident when a mould killed the bacteria in a dish Alexander Fleming had left out

the gist

In 1928 Alexander Fleming returned from holiday to find that a Petri dish of Staphylococcus bacteria had been contaminated by a mould, and no bacteria were growing near it. The mould was Penicillium, which releases a chemical that kills many bacteria while leaving human cells largely unharmed. Fleming identified the substance but found it hard to purify and produce in quantity. Around 1940, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain at Oxford developed it into a usable drug, which went on to save huge numbers of lives in the Second World War.

so what

Penicillin started the antibiotic era and turned many once-deadly infections, from pneumonia to wound infections, into treatable conditions. It also shows that discoveries often need a second group of scientists to turn a lucky observation into something people can use.

fun fact

Alexander Fleming shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Howard Florey and Ernst Chain.

more on this

background

Penicillins (P, PCN or PEN) are a group of β-lactam antibiotics originally obtained from Penicillium moulds, principally P. chrysogenum and P. rubens. Eight species of Penicillium, in the section Chrysogena, produce penicillins. Most penicillins in clinical use are synthesised by P. chrysogenum using deep tank fermentation and then purified. A number of natural penicillins have been discovered, but only two purified compounds are in clinical use: penicillin G (intramuscular or intravenous use) and penicillin V (given by mouth). Penicillins were among the first medications to be effective against many bacterial infections caused by staphylococci and streptococci. They are still widely used today for various bacterial infections, though many types of bacteria have developed resistance following extensive use.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · text CC BY-SA 4.0

Illustrative photo · United States Department of Agriculture, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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historyThe Public Domain Review1909 · United States

D. W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909)

the gist

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.

how it works

To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.

so what

A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.

the bigger pattern

Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.

fun fact

In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.

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