Why My Life Has Continued: In Spite of Near Fatal Situations

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The first encounter with a near-fatal situation was obviously related to me by my mother, since I was only a few months old. Soon after I was born, I had double pneumonia and the doctor told my mother that I would probably not survive. But I did. When she finally told me about this, I was an adult and I wondered so much about it that I wanted to know just when antibiotics were discovered and so I looked for that information. At the time I didn't have any access to the Internet, but I went to the library, my favorite place, and I found what I was looking for. Sure enough, my mother was right. There was no penicillin available when I had pneumonia. Alexander Fleming, who was a Scottish biologist, pharmacologist and botanist ACCIDENTLY discovered that the mold that was growing on one of his culture dishes of staphylococci had destroyed the bacteria that surrounded it. The story was that he had gone on vacation with his family, for several weeks and had left these culture dishes stacked on a bench in his lab. When he returned, he noticed that mold had grown on some of the cultures. He thought that it was very odd, that the bacteria near the mold had been destroyed, but he was smart enough to test this mold further and see what the results would be. He named the mold, penicillin, and continued to investigate its effect on many different organisms, including the pathogen that causes pneumonia and sure enough it killed the bacteria. This was in 1928, before I was born in the 40s, but much more research trials and collaboration with other scientists had to take place before this antibiotic could be successfully used. Many other scientists were involved with the development of penicillin, but Fleming is the one who started the process and he is the one who is credited with naming it. It was in 1945, which was AFTER I survived pneumonia that this team of scientists developed a way to PURIFY penicillin and develop a stable form of it. Following many clinical trials, it was finally ready to introduce it for use by the general public and begin a mass production of it. I was fascinated by his entire LIFE story and if you want to learn more, you can actually visit the laboratory where Fleming discovered penicillin at St. Mary's Hospital which houses the Fleming Museum in London, which was opened in 1998. Fleming was always modest about his discovery, since, after all, it was by pure accident that he discovered it, but what an amazing scientist he proved to be. Unfortunately, he died at the age of 73 in 1955. In the meantime, he won many awards, including the Nobel Price in Medicine in 1945. I hope you enjoyed this story. I have other stories about why I am still alive today. I will be sharing them with you later. I have a sign in my office that says: "Some days I look back on my life and I'm extremely impressed that I am still alive." I think you will be too when you hear about some of my near fatal experiences. Stay tuned.