What The Tech?! Penicillen

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31 May 2025

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As we’ve explored this series, we’ve gone to great lengths to explain that the “tech” that changed our world isn’t always electronic. As such, we’ve explored railways, steam engines and other pieces of technology that aren’t electronic at all!

In today's article, we’ll be looking at another non-electric bit of tech. Known for providing a revolution in medical care, a significant improvement in life expectancy, as well as providing the basis for other antibiotic research. Penicillin definitely helped improve our modern world (and medicine) for the better. Let’s check it out.

Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming would provide information critical to its discovery and mass production. Source: Wikipedia.

Discovery

Discovered in early 1928, penicillin was touted as the biggest step taken in man-made intervention on chronic disease.

A near accidental invention, it was discovered while carrying out research in regard to antiseptics and other infectious diseases. Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming would carry out extensive research into products and strategies that would help contain infectious diseases.

Returning from holidays, he would discover a tray of Staphylococcus bacteria that was dead and covered in a mould. With the mould later being determined to be the Penicillium mould, Fleming understood that this was to be a medically relevant discovery.

Before we’d see it in the civilian world though, we’d need wartime evolution to help provide the means to mass produce and preserve the drug in a format that was easy to use and distribute. As such, it would take some time for this research to trickle down into civilian society.

Fleming carrying out research in his lab, circa 1943. Source: Wikipedia.

Forgotten Years

Surprisingly enough, in 1929, when Fleming presented his discovery to the medical community, there was little interest or recognition in the discovery that had been made. So much so, in fact, that the director of the National Medical Research Institute wasn’t even able to make the connection between the discovery and its relevance to medical treatment.

This was no small moment in time either. In fact, many consider the 30s to be the lost era for antibiotic medical research, as the discovery of penicillin languished with no real research carried out in the aftermath. Time and time again, the discovery was deemed by medical research agencies to have “little use” in treating bacterial-based conditions.

Despite this, Fleming continued his research into the utility of penicillin as a product, as well as attempting to solve the problem of safe and consistent mass production.

It would eventually take a full decade for others to continue the research, as in 1941, British researchers would carry out the first steps in refining and purifying the product to an acceptable medical grade.

Fleming’s methods for research continue to be used today. Source: Wikipedia.

Clinical Trials

The first clinical trials in 1941 would focus on treating and assessing head and nasal conditions. One of Fleming’s research colleagues, Stuart Craddock, would be the first test case assessed, being given a dose of penicillin in an attempt to treat a chronic case of sinusitis.

He would also go on to treat both adult and infant cases of conjunctivitis in these early stages, as well as provide usable penicillin samples to his co-workers for further assessment. While there is little recorded history about the success of these trials, there’s no denying that at this point, the efficacy of penicillin was certainly being reconsidered.

By the middle of the war in 1942, penicillin was being produced as a medical-grade powder and was in the midst of more advanced clinical trials. Due to the importance of the war effort, penicillin production was deemed to be a national security issue, and as such, production was moved into government hands.

By 1943, the British government had set up a Penicillin Committee, which had the sole job of ensuring the production and distribution of penicillin on a scale that would be adequate for members of the Allied armed forces.

Fleming would eventually be knighted for his discoveries. Source: Wikipedia.

Post War

While the mid-40s would see penicillin produced on a large scale for military and government departments, it would take the end of the war and a relaxing of wartime conditions before the drug would be widely available on the civilian market.

The reality was that you didn’t need to be a military specialist or strategist to observe the possibility that penicillin could potentially save millions of lives and revolutionise the way we saw healthcare.

As such, in the freedoms of the post-war era, there was a push for two things to occur. Firstly, discoveries like penicillin should be allowed to be sold to Civilians on the Civilian market. And, further research on wartime medicine should also be carried out and passed on.

While war is, for the most part, a pretty horrific thing, there is no denying that large progress is made in many fields when such situations occur.

Antibiotic resistance bacteria would be identified as a problem early. This is the MRSA bacteria. Source: Wikipedia

Problems & The Fleming Myth

While in hindsight, penicillin would be deemed to be revolutionary, even Fleming understood that the drug wasn’t without its problems. In fact, understanding the ability of bacteria to evolve meant that Fleming was one of the first to understand that antibiotic resistance was potentially something that humans would eventually encounter.

The evolution of antibiotics also led to them being used in more than just the medical field. Eventually, they would filter down into animals and agriculture as well, providing new ways to keep animals on the farm healthy. This would eventually be quite a controversial practice, as many pointed out that it would increase the overall risk of encountering antibiotic-resistant bacteria that would cause problems for humans. It’s no lie to say that in today's world, this problem still persists.

The large gap of research lost to the thirties would also lead to a unique problem known as the Fleming myth. Due to much being lost to the passage of time, Historians would eventually realise they weren’t sure who was responsible for certain parts of the research at all.
As such, many clinical trials and research programs would end up being credited to Fleming, as researchers who weren’t aware of whom to credit would simply end up applying credit to Fleming. This would create a grey area over much of Penicillin’s development that continues, even to this day.

The future of fighting diseases appears to lie with Bacterial Phages taking the place of some antibiotics.

In The Future

With MRSA and other resistant bacteria providing an urgent and ongoing problem, the medical research field has its work cut out for it in terms of finding an adequate replacement for antibiotics when treating antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

However, they didn’t disappoint, and now, we have the development and implementation of the first Bacteriophages available to modern medicine.

While discussing them is far outside the scope of a single article, it provides new ways to treat some of the antibiotic-resistant diseases that humanity has encountered.

Research for this is still in ongoing development, however, the discovery of Phages was also made in the early 1900s. Due to the technology available at the time, more funding and research were directed toward antibiotics due to their ease of purification and manufacture. At this point though, Phages, when paired with modern medical technology, offer much to humans.

While it can be controversial at times, there’s no denying that modern medicine has gone through significant changes in the past 100 years.

What The Tech is our recurring, twice-monthly piece that looks at the technology that was essential in shaping our modern world.

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