I have been working for many years on the problem of finding substances which would destroy microbes in the body without injuring the cells of the body.
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"My work was not a flash of genius, but a gradual unfolding of facts."
"I am not a very good speaker, but I hope my work speaks for itself."
"It is not an exaggeration to say that the discovery of penicillin has saved millions of lives."
"I have been very lucky in my scientific career. I have stumbled on things by accident."
"It is not enough to discover a thing; one must also know how to use it."
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Fleming is describing decades of dedicated research aimed at finding a chemical that can kill harmful bacteria inside the human body without also damaging the patient's own healthy cells. This is the core challenge of antimicrobial medicine — selective toxicity. He's articulating the fundamental problem that drove his entire career: the invader and the host share similar biology, so how do you destroy one without harming the other?
Fleming spent decades at St. Mary's Hospital London under bacteriologist Almroth Wright, obsessing over wound infections. His 1921 discovery of lysozyme — an enzyme in tears and saliva that kills bacteria — was an early step toward this goal. His 1928 penicillin discovery, when mold contaminated a petri dish and killed surrounding bacteria, was the breakthrough answer to precisely this question. He shared the 1945 Nobel Prize for solving it.
In the early 20th century, bacterial infections — pneumonia, sepsis, tuberculosis — were among the leading causes of death. World War I showed that infected wounds killed more soldiers than combat. Existing antiseptics like carbolic acid killed bacteria but destroyed surrounding tissue. There was no safe way to fight infection systemically. Fleming's era desperately needed a targeted bactericide, making his lifelong question one of medicine's most urgent unsolved problems.
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