Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming's life saving discovery of Penicillin

Alexander Fleming FRS FRSE FRCS (6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955) was a Scottish biologist, pharmacologist and botanist, whose crucial discovery of penicillin saved the lives of millions of people all over the world. In September 1928 while studying influenza Alexander Fleming noticed mould had developed accidentally on a set of culture dishes being used to grow the staphylococci germ. The mould had created a bacteria-free circle around itself. He experimented further and named the active substance penicillin. He said later: "when I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn't plan to revolutionise all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic, or bacteria killer, but I suppose that was exactly what I did." He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945.

He was born on 6 August 1881 at Lochfield farm near Darvel (Scottish Gaelic: Darbhail) which is a small town in East Ayrshire, Scotland. Given the great benefit to the world of his discovery. the town's Latin motto, Non sibi sed cunctis, meaning "Not for ourselves, but for others" is very apt. Now samples of penicillin mould, signed and inscribed by Alexander Fleming, have been sold at auction for £24,375. In addition to the mould samples, the lots sold included his papers and memorabilia which had been kept by his niece Mary Elizabeth Johnston. Among them were Alexander Fleming's journal of a 1945 tour of the United States and a 1957 telegram to him from the film star Bebe Daniels.