The day penicillin was discovered – level 3

28-09-1928

Alexander Fleming was a Scottish microbiologist. He wanted to discover a substance that would be able to kill bacteria in a human body.

In August 1928, Fleming spent a vacation with family at his country home. When he returned to his laboratory in September, he went to check his plates with bacteria. He found one plate with an open lid and a blue-green mold in it. The bacteria around the mold didn’t grow, meaning that the mold killed the bacteria.

That was a fantastic finding. Fleming continued his work and soon he was able to create mold by himself. He tested if his mold also killed bacteria.

He saw the result of his testing on September 28, 1928. When he looked at his plates, he saw that his mold also killed bacteria. He called his mold penicillin. Penicillin became the world’s first broadly effective antibiotic.

In 1945, Fleming received the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Difficult words: plate (a small dish used in a laboratory for testing and experiments), lid (a cover), mold (a substance that grows on old food), broadly (in many places), antibiotic (a substance that can destroy bacteria).

What advances in scientific knowledge did Fleming's discovery of penicillin lead to?

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