Alexander Fleming — "It is not often that one finds a substance that is both highly bactericidal and …"
It is not often that one finds a substance that is both highly bactericidal and non-toxic to animal tissues.
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More from Alexander Fleming
"I have always been interested in the effect of one microbe on another."
"It is a matter of great satisfaction to see penicillin saving so many lives."
"I am often asked if I foresaw the impact of penicillin. My honest answer is no."
"The greatest reward for a scientist is the advancement of knowledge."
"The public will probably never understand the difficulties that beset the path of the original investigator."
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Finding an agent that kills bacteria while remaining harmless to human tissue is extraordinarily rare. Most potent antibacterial compounds are toxic to living cells — the very property that destroys microbes often damages the host. Fleming is stating why penicillin was a genuine breakthrough: it killed pathogens with high efficiency yet left animal cells unharmed. This selectivity — lethal to bacteria, safe for humans — is the essential prerequisite for any medicine that can actually be used inside a living body.
Relevance to Alexander Fleming
Fleming witnessed WWI surgeons applying harsh antiseptics — iodine, carbolic acid — that damaged wounds as badly as infection. This drove his lifelong hunt for gentler bactericides. His 1922 lysozyme discovery showed nature could produce selective killers, but it was too weak clinically. His 1928 penicillin finding — a mold's own defensive secretion — finally delivered the ideal: highly lethal to bacteria yet harmless to tissue, precisely the rare combination this quote describes.
The era
In the early 20th century, bacterial infections — pneumonia, sepsis, infected wounds — killed tens of millions with no internal remedy. Existing treatments used harsh chemical disinfectants that burned tissue and could not be administered into the bloodstream. WWI proved this catastrophically: more soldiers died of infected wounds than combat injuries. By the 1920s, medicine urgently needed a systemic cure. Fleming's observation captured the field's core unsolved challenge, and penicillin's answer to it launched the entire modern antibiotic era.
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