Alexander Fleming — "It is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the laboratory b…"
It is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the laboratory by exposing them to concentrations not sufficient to kill them.
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More from Alexander Fleming
"The mould grew, and then I saw the clear space around it."
"I never thought of myself as a great man, just a man who made a great discovery."
"The most important thing in science is not to get discouraged by failures."
"I did not invent penicillin. Nature did that. I only discovered it by accident."
"That's funny."
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Understanding this quote
What it means
If you expose bacteria to penicillin doses too weak to kill them, they adapt and become resistant to the drug. Survival pressure drives evolution: the strongest microbes survive, reproduce, and pass on resistance. Incomplete treatment is therefore dangerous—it trains pathogens to overcome the very medicine designed to destroy them, rendering future treatment far more difficult.
Relevance to Alexander Fleming
Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928 after observing mold killing bacteria on a contaminated petri dish. This observation came directly from his meticulous laboratory work. He witnessed resistance emerging experimentally and issued this warning in his 1945 Nobel Prize lecture, demonstrating his characteristic scientific caution and moral responsibility toward public health consequences of his own discovery.
The era
Fleming spoke these words in 1945, just as penicillin mass production began following WWII battlefield use. Antibiotics were revolutionary—miracle drugs saving millions from previously fatal infections. Yet commercial availability created new dangers: patients stopping doses early, doctors over-prescribing. Fleming's warning proved prophetic as resistant strains emerged within years, launching the ongoing antibiotic resistance crisis still worsening today.
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