In 1885, Hugh Fleming (Alexanders father) came to Scotland to farm.  There he met a girl named Jane Young.  Together they had four children named: Jane, Hugh, Thomas, and Mary.  Then tragedy struck.  After Jane had deliverd Mary she became very ill and died.

    Two years later Hugh married Grace Morton.  They had four more children: Grace, John, Alexander, and Robert.  Life was very harsh for the Fleming family.  There was only three bedrooms in there house to fit all 10 of them.  They only took baths on special occasions, and had no bathrooms.

    At two years old, Alexander sister, Jane married a doctor.  Unfortunately, Jane caught small pox and died.  Another year later Hugh Fleming suffered a stroke and got paralyzed.  One year later, he died.  Despite all these tragedies Alex or Alec (nickname) still loved and enjoyed nature just like his younger brother, Robert.

 

  A farmer saved a little boy that was trapped inside a bog.  The father of the little boy offered the farmer to pay him money.  The farmer refused; the father asked the farmer if he will pay for his son, Alexander Fleming, to go to school.

 

     Alexander Fleming was born near Lochfield,Scotland.  He was educated at Saint Mary's Medical School of the University of London.  There he was a professor who taught about bacteria.  Fleming also was educated in chemotherapy and immunology.  While researching influenza Fleming discovered something amazing.

 

     His observations showed contaminating one of his culture plates and had destroyed the bacteria, it laid the basis for the development of penicillin therapy.  Fleming got the noble prize in medicine in 1945.  Also in  1945 Fleming was knighted.  Fleming also got some help by an Australian scientist, Howard Walter Florey and  a British pathologist Ernst Boris Chain.

 

Quotes by Alexander Fleming

 

“One sometimes finds wehat one is not looking for.”

 

“A good gulp of hot whiskey at bedtime - it's not very scientific but it helps”

 

“I have been trying to point out that in our lives chance may have an astonishing influence and, if I may offer advice to the young laboratory worker, it would be this - never to neglect an extraordinary appearance or happening.”

 

“It is the lone worker who makes the first advance in a subject; the details may be worked out by a team, but the prime idea is due to enterprise, thought, and perception of an individual.”