Penicillin Cantaloupe Painter’s brush Commentary

Alexander Fleming pharmacology

Penicillin

• A blue-green mold
• accidentally contaminated
• Alexander Fleming’s
• petri dish
• in which he was
• growing Staphylococcus
• bacteria.
• Strangely, he noticed
• a halo around the mold
• in which the bacteria
• did not grow
• and studied the matter further,
• finding that the mold was a Penicillium
• and that a filtrate of its broth,
• which he called penicillin,
• inhibited the growth and
• broke down the cells
• of bacteria.

Cantaloupe

• Fleming thought that penicillin
• might make a good antiseptic
• but would not survive in the human body
• long enough to kill pathogenic bacteria.
• Trials of penicillin to treat humans
• failed because of the difficulty of purifying it
• and producing it in sufficient quantities.
• In 1942, Merk & Co. in the U.S.
• produced only enough penicillin to treat ten patients.
• But larger supplies were needed for the war effort.
• A world-wide search was made for the best source.
• Fermentation of corn steep liquor
• and a moldy cantaloupe found in Peoria
• helped the U.S. produce millions of doses in time
• for the invasion of Normandy in the spring of 1944.

Painter’s brush

• Chains of Penicillium’s conidia resemble a broom.
• A new broom sweeps corners clean.
• A painter sweeps his brush across the canvas
• to represent our dirty world.
• He paints a portrait of a scientist;
• he paints an allegory of accidental discovery.
• An old broom sits in the corner of the view,
• symbolizing our struggle to live in the natural world.