I agree with you, Fleming had almost given up after years of research in vane, but then, just by not cleaning a pile of petri dishes he ended up making one of the most important discoveries in the history of medicine. He found that the mold, that grew because of the dirt that those dishes had, produced something that killed bacteria by targeting the cell walls and inhibiting the bacteria's reproduction.
This observation lead to one of the greatest discoveries ever made in the medicine field, and I find rather amusing the fact that this was discovered almost by mistake. Flehming made this observation because, in lab material he didn‘t clean, mold emerged, and he saw how the presence of this mold in contact with bacteria, killed it. This meant that the mold secreted some sort of substance that was able to stop the bacteria from reproducing and eventually killed it. After this discovery, it was only a matter of getting a hold of this substance to be able to obtain the cure to infectious diseases.
Many times, chance pays a fundamental role in science. In this case, Fleming spent many years trying to find a way to kill bacteria and without knowing it, by accident, he found one. Sometimes we just have to let nature act and patiently watch. For Fleming, that was the first step that allowed him to continue searching a cure for bacterial infection.
Fleming was studying Staphylococcus bacteria and realized that his sample had been contaminated by some type of fungus. After analyzing the mold that developed in the bacteria, he found that the substance produced by this fungus was able to inhibit bacterial growth. Thus, penicillin acts by weakening the bacterial cell wall and favoring the lysis of the bacteria during the multiplication process.
This means that his discovery was by "accident".
This observation lead to one of the greatest discoveries ever made in the medicine field, and I find rather amusing the fact that this was discovered almost by mistake. Flehming made this observation because, in lab material he didn‘t clean, mold emerged, and he saw how the presence of this mold in contact with bacteria, killed it. This meant that the mold secreted some sort of substance that was able to stop the bacteria from reproducing and eventually killed it. After this discovery, it was only a matter of getting a hold of this substance to be able to obtain the cure to infectious diseases.
Many times, chance pays a fundamental role in science. In this case, Fleming spent many years trying to find a way to kill bacteria and without knowing it, by accident, he found one. Sometimes we just have to let nature act and patiently watch. For Fleming, that was the first step that allowed him to continue searching a cure for bacterial infection.
Fleming was studying Staphylococcus bacteria and realized that his sample had been contaminated by some type of fungus. After analyzing the mold that developed in the bacteria, he found that the substance produced by this fungus was able to inhibit bacterial growth. Thus, penicillin acts by weakening the bacterial cell wall and favoring the lysis of the bacteria during the multiplication process.