The Penicillin Myth

That video above isn't the real thing I'm posting today, and this isn't really a chemistry post at all. It's a general scientific method post.

That video tells the popularly-understood and oft retold story of how Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1929.

The actual link I'm sharing today - from Asimov Press - is titled "The Penicillin Myth" looks at Fleming's story of the discovery and posits "maybe he didn't."

See, the article details some flaws in the discovery story - namely that a plate initially inoculated with staphylococci and subsequently contaminated with penicillium would not actually kill the staph bacteria since penicillin only affects growing - not mature - colonies.

In the article, Kevin Blake recounts two other theories of how Fleming might have actually discovered the effectiveness of penicillin with slight differences from Fleming's story.

The article is a great exploration of the scientific method - of the importance of record keeping, the ability of other scientists to replicate experiments, and what effect historical inaccuracies in how a discovery was made have on the importance of the discovery itself.