What is alexander fleming famous for

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Find out more about page archiving. World War One Centenary. Settings Sign out. Mary's Hospital in London, Fleming established himself as a highly capable research scientist. His earliest accomplishments included making two improvements on methods for testing and treating syphilis. He simplified the Wassermann test so that it could be performed using a small blood sample derived from a finger prick rather than a vein. He also described an improved technique for treating syphilis patients with Salvarsan, or "," the notoriously difficult-to-administer antisyphilis drug developed by Paul Ehrlich.

More than just a technician who improved upon others' ideas, Fleming made many discoveries in his own right. While working at a makeshift laboratory in France during the First World War, Fleming and Wright demonstrated that the antiseptics used by surgeons in the field were more harmful than helpful: they were often more effective at killing the body's infection-fighting leukocytes than infection-causing bacteria.

Thereafter, Fleming began searching for a nontoxic antibacterial substance, and, by November , he had found one. Examining cultures of his own nasal mucus that he had made two weeks prior while suffering from a common cold, Fleming discovered that, although bacteria had formed colonies on parts of his cultures, they had not grown in or directly near the mucus. He coined the term "lysozyme" to describe the enzyme in mucus capable of inducing bacteriolysis and soon detected its presence in human tissues and secretions, including saliva and tears and, later, in egg whites.

Although lysozyme's antibacterial properties proved considerably weaker against bacteria other than the airborne Micrococcus lysodeikticus that had colonized Fleming's cultures, he had nevertheless opened a new field in immunological research and renewed hopes about the possibility of finding a nontoxic antiseptic.

Once penicillin was proven to be such a substance, Fleming devoted himself to furthering research on the drug and promoting its use. Because penicillin has saved countless lives, Fleming has been elevated to heights that few scientists reach.

While at the Potsdam Conference on postwar settlement in July , U. President Harry Truman declared that Fleming was one individual to whom "the whole world owes a debt of gratitude difficult to estimate. Sir Alexander Fleming, F. Brief Bio Alexander Fleming was born into a large farm family in Lochfield, Scotland, on August 6, , Fleming was the youngest of eight children.