A Radio Talk by Charles F. Kettering One day seventeen years ago when Dr. Fleming was teaching bacteriology at St. Mary's Hospital School at the University of London, he set aside a culture of bacteria, and some hours later, when examining the plate under a microscope, he noticed it was spoiled. The culture grew on only half the plate - the other half was spotted with a blue-green mold. Many observers normally would have thrown the plate away - but Fleming had been looking for a special material for a long while so he wrote in his notebook these undramatic words that were to help change the science of medicine, "I was sufficiently interested in the anti-bacterial substance produced by the mold to pursue the subject." |