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=Alexander Fleming= By: Paul McNatt Alexander Fleming was born in 1881 at Lochfield, a farm outside Darvel in Ayrshire Scotland. There is a story on how is poor family got the money to send him to medical school. His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog. There, down to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death. The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman's sparse surroundings.An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved."I want to repay you," said the nobleman. "You saved my son's life." "No, I can't accept payment for what I did," the Scottish farmer replied, waving off the offer. At that moment, the farmer's own son came to the door of the family hovel."Is that your son?" the nobleman asked. "Yes," the farmer replied proudly. "I'll make you a deal. Let me provide him with the level of education my son will enjoy. If the lad is anything like his father, he'll no doubt grow to be a man we both will be proud of."

That he did.Farmer Fleming's son attended the very best schools and in time, he graduated from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin. Years afterward, the same nobleman's son who was saved from the bog was stricken with pneumonia. What saved his life this time? Penicillin.The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill. His son's name? Sir Winston Churchill.

After completing his education at Regent Street Polytechnic, London in 1897, he took an office job for a few years. In 1901, he quit his job and went to St. Mary Hospital to study medicine. During the war between Britain and Germany in 1914, Fleming joined the British Royal Army Medical Corps to develop a cure to reduce the number of soldiers dying from infected wounds. He argued that antiseptics were not effective in preventing wounds from becoming infected. His argument was, however, rejected and little was done to relieve the suffering of many wounded soldiers.

One day in 1928, before tossing some old petri dishes of culture away, he made an accidental discovery of a blue mold growing on the culture of some harmful kind of bacteria. The mold seemed to be able to kill off the bacteria. A series of experiments later proved his findings and led to the discovery of penicillin. It was a strain of penicillia which could kill off bacteria while not causing any damage to wounds. It worked against many kinds of bacteria and was mostly safe for the human body. Unfortunately, with insufficient support from the medical community, the research had to stop.

Finally in the late 1930s, other scientists found a way to mass-produce penicillin. British and American drug companies began to manufacture the drug in large quantites. It was then used to cure many infections during World War II. In 1945, Fleming was presented the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Penicillin has changed the way of medicine forever. Instead of one type there are thousands you can choose from.

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=Economic Impact=

The benefits of penicillin to America and the world haven’t been limited to the medical sphere alone. The impact that penicillin had on the American economy is overwhelming. The economic impact of infectious disease in the 1920’s and 30’s (pre penicillin) was staggering. Every person who got sick from pneumonia, diphtheria, and scarlet fever had to be cared for, and this proved a drain on both hospitals and patient’s families. More importantly (from a economic standpoint), men who sickened and died from these infections represented a huge loss to the work force.

Penicillin significantly shortened the duration of pneumonia and other bacterial diseases, in addition to vastly reducing their mortality. Both effects paid handsome economic benefits. Health care costs were reduced, and workers who contracted diseases like pneumonia recovered quickly, returning to their jobs. We don’t know the total impact that penicillin had on the US economy in the 1940’s but, in today’s terms, it was surely well into the billions. Alexander Fleming had to get his product financed due to most doctors and scientists did not allow his research. There is no record I have found on much it costs to make it but due to the cost of other things made it would be 25 cents. It would cost about 50 or 75 cents back then and poeple made about $500 dollars in two days because World War 2 was over and many Americans had jobs so they could afford it. Americans feared that the end of World War II and the subsequent drop in military spending might bring back the hard times of the Great Depression. But instead, pent-up consumer demand fueled exceptionally strong economic growth in the post war period. The automobile industry successfully converted back to producing cars, and new industries such as aviation and electronics grew by leaps and bounds. A housing boom, stimulated in part by easily affordable mortgages for returning members of the military, added to the expansion. The nation's gross national product rose from about $200,000 million in 1940 to $300,000 million in 1950 and to more than $500,000 million in 1960. At the same time, the jump in postwar births, known as the "baby boom," increased the number of consumers. More and more Americans joined the middle class. Also the military needed the so called "Wonder Drug". so it was in popular demand for the United States Army and other military departments. The need to produce war supplies had given rise to a huge military-industrial complex. It did not disappear with the war's end. As the Iron Curtain descended across Europe and the United States found itself embroiled in a cold war with the Soviet Union, the government maintained substantial fighting capacity and invested in sophisticated weapons such as the hydrogen bomb and medical breakthroughs like penicillin. Economic aid flowed to war-ravaged European countries under the Marshall Plan, which also helped maintain markets for numerous U.S. goods. And the government itself recognized its central role in economic affairs.

Also penicillin helped saved so many lives that the workforce was gaining higher ground for production. Ultimately, it was this war-time industrial boom that brought the nation out of the Great Depression and made the United States the wealthiest nation in the world after the war ended.The initial military buildup brought back to work many laborers who had beenunemployed by the Great Depression. During the war, average weekly earnings rose nearly 70 percent. Farmers who had suffered through years of low prices and overproduction doubled their income and then doubled it again. Heavy industry jobs almost invariably went to men and most of the skilled positions went to whites. As military service drained the supply white male workers, however, women and minorities became more attractive candidates for production jobs. Soon, both private employers and the government were encouraging women to go to work, southern blacks to move to northern and western industrial cities, and Mexicans to enter the United States.

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=Cultural Impact=

Fleming discovers penicillin. 1928

First human treated. 1941

Got Nobel Peace Prize. 1944 First civilians treated. 1945

Penicillin goes into mass production. 1945

Helped discover other medicine. 1945-present day

I found this intresting story that shows that people wanted penicillin badly. []

"Dear Mr. President," wrote a Baltimore woman to President Roosevelt in November 1943, "I know you are busy with the war, but could you spare a few minutes and read my letter. I am in great need of your help. My husband is in great need of the new drug penicillin. … I have two sons serving Uncle Sam. One is a sergeant in the Army Air Corps and my other son is in the navy and is somewhere at sea. His ship sunk a German sub about a month ago. Mr. President, I gave Uncle Sam two sons, could you please try to get me that new drug and save my husband? … I'm almost out of my mind."

In pleading her case to the president, this woman highlighted her personal contributions to the war effort, linking her gift of two sons to the gift of renewed life and productivity she believed Roosevelt could grant her husband. This woman was not alone in her belief that the president and his wife could provide the public with the new miracle drug. Other writers also stressed the importance of their work to the war effort or to the support of their families - themes that Roosevelt used himself when he addressed the nation concerning infantile paralysiss to the nation. In the fight against infantile paralysis, these exhortations were intended to persuade individual citizens to financially support medical science through charitable contributions, to do their part to conquer a disease that crippled individual and societal productivity. In the case of penicillin, individual citizens employed many of the same rhetorical strategies in order to persuade members of the federal and scientific bureaucracy - embodied for many Americans by the Roosevelts - to release to them the miracle drug they believed would restore them to full health and citizenship.