Alexander Fleming

Bryson tells the story of Fleming, a medical researcher who accidentally discovered penicillin in 1928. Spores of mold apparently drifted into a petri dish he left unattended in his lab while away on holiday. When he returned, he found the mold had inhibited bacterial growth in the petri dish. The mold that landed in his petri dish was penicillium notatum. Although the mold is common in London, Fleming did not exploit his discovery. Penicillin was not widely available until after WWII when a student in the United States found the same mold growing on the rind of a cantaloupe. Fleming won the Nobel Prize in 1945 when he warned against the overuse of antibiotics because microbes can easily evolve resistance to them. Fleming not only made an discovery that changed medicine, but the story of his discovery illustrates the randomness of many discoveries Bryson discusses in the book...