By Nur Ayu Zulaikha Muhammad Hisham
GOMBAK, 30 March 2021: Students were exposed to knowledge on “History of Penicillin” following an online exhibition and talk organised by the Department of History and Civilisation in collaboration with Histforium recently.
The two-week exhibition which is part of History Festival 2021 was aimed to emphasise the connection between the past and the present in terms of diseases and medicines along the theme ‘Pandemic Calamity Change the World’.
During the talk, the speaker, Nor Iffah Izzatie, shared her view on the discovery of penicillin and how the discovery was considered significant for the modern medicine.
Nor Iffah began the talk with a story on how the founder, Alexander Fleming, discovered penicillin which she described as unpredictable and the story itself was a little bit on a humorous side.
In 1928, Alexander Fleming, a Scottish bacteriologist, worked in St. Marry Hospital. Nor Iffah said, “At that time, he was busy investigating about influenza and bacteria known as staphylococcus.”
Nor Iffah continued saying that Alexander Fleming returned to his laboratory and found that his petri dish contained staphylococcus bacteria, which has been contaminated with a blue-green mould known as Penicillium notatum.
She said, “Fleming discovered that this mould had killed some of the bacteria he had been growing.”
Nor Iffah continued the story with experimentations made by Fleming with isolation of mould, grew more of it and regarded that as a success. “This is because no new cells could be formed by bacteria which means no bacterial growth.”
The foundation of Alexander Fleming on penicillin, according to Iffah, was not believed by the society at that time (in 1929). However, the discovery opened to the new experiment on penicillin for the next few years in 1939.
Nor Iffah noted two scientists, Ernst Boris Chain and Howard Walter Florey from Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University. “Both of these scientists started to have interest in penicillin after Fleming’s observation,” Nor Iffah said.
According to Nor Iffah, Howard Walter Florey collaborated with a fungal expert, Norman Heatley who established filtrate penicillin in 1939.
The success of this collaboration could be seen when filtrated penicillin grew in huge amount and brought positive impact from the experiment.
The team conducted an animal experiment first before conducting it on human. The effectiveness of penicillin has been recognised where after that the team had purified the penicillin and conducted it on human.
The first recipient mentioned by Iffah is 43 year-old policeman, Albert Alexander who got badly infected by staphylococcus and streptococcus bacteria.
Within 24 hours, his condition started to improve after being injected with penicillin. However, because the supply had run out, he died a few weeks later, according to Nor Iffah.
Continuing her talk, she said that the scientists published their clinical findings, but Great Britain at that time was unable to help produce in a big quantity, hence Florey asked for help from the United States.
After that, the production of penicillin in the world became more developed as many countries were inspired by the discovery. Nor Iffah referred to this as a significant history.
The online exhibition talk held on 29 March was conducted for an hour from 9 p.m to 10 p.m and participated by more than 40 participants.***