Penicillin: There’s More To the Story
 

Everyone knows the Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in some moldy bread in his laboratory at St. Mary’s Hospital in London. Penicillin was one of the first antibiotics discovered and is still one the most widely used to combat bacterial infection. Although the story of Fleming’s discovery is true, he wasn’t the first to observe the beneficial effects of penicillin, which is derived from the Penicillium fungi commonly found in mold.

Bread with blue mold growing on it was used to treat infected wounds during the Middle Ages. Arabian stable masters, for example, used it to cure sores on horses. In 1896, a French medical student named Ernest Duchesne submitted a paper on penicillin’s healing properties to the Institut Pasteur, but his findings were ignored because of his youth. A Costa Rican doctor, Clodomiro Picado Twight, reported similar observations on the effects of the Penicillium fungi in treating infections, but his discovery won little attention.

On Sept. 28, 1928, Fleming noticed blue-green mold growing on a plate of Staphylococcus bacteria that had accidently been left open. The mold produced a halo of inhibited bacterial growth, from which Fleming concluded that the mold contained a substance that resisted the bacteria. It wasn’t until the 1940s, though, that the active ingredient in Pencillium was identified and doctors began using it to treat infections. 

Believe in the Power of Words

A Zen master told a small group of disciples that words held the power to shape reality and influence physical health and sickness.

One of the disciples was skeptical. “Words may affect the mind,” he said, “but nothing else.”

The master frowned. “Only a very ignorant, foolish person would say that. Leave at once.”

The disciple stared at the master and his face turned red. His body grew tense and his fists clenched in anger.

Then the master spoke calmly: “Observe the effect of a few words on your own body. Stay and think of how powerfully they can affect us all.”