Before we get under way with the Florey story, can you think of a link between cantaloupe and penicillin? No? Nor could I until I researched this item!
Penicillin was discovered by English researcher Sir Alexander Fleming, so why should an upstart Australian be given so much credit for it? The fact is, it had lain dormant; it was entirely due to Florey’s determination that manufacture began, increasing quantities to the extent the antibiotic became available for use.
Howard Walter Florey was born in Adelaide in September 1898. As a young man, he received a good level of education before entering the University of Adelaide, graduating with M.B. and B.Sc. in 1921 and, much later, his M.D. in 1944. A Rhodes Scholar, he went to Oxford in 1921. Through the next several years, between Oxford and Cambridge, he gained B.A, B.Sc., Ph.D. and no less than two M.A. degrees.
In the 1930s, a time when scientists still worked mainly as individuals, Florey drew together a scientific team. Among them was his wife, Ethel, with whom he attended university. They maintained correspondence long after Howard left Australia. Ethel followed him to England where they married. It was an unhappy relationship – he tended to be rather intolerant and she suffered poor health – although the also-qualified Ethel later worked alongside her husband on clinical trials.
Florey made great advances in the field of experimental pathology, will go down in the annals of science as the developer of the systemic antibacterial agent, penicillin. Much of his work at Cambridge had centred on the study of lysozyme, an enzyme discovered in 1922 by Fleming.
As is so often the case with discoveries, it was accidental.
For thousands of years, without any understanding of how they worked, moulds and fermented matter had been used to cure a number of infections. Those who made subsequent headway included Pasteur and Lister, but it was young French student Ernest Duchene who successfully created and used a mould that inhibited bacterial growth in animals. Sadly, he died young in 1912 and it would be 20 years before Fleming made his discovery.
Interestingly, it was a tear that gave Fleming direction. The tear fell from his eye into a culture plate. He established that a substance in his tear, later called lysozyme, killed bacteria. Some years after, he was researching the flu. He went on holiday but hadn’t cleaned out a Petri dish. A bit of Penicillium mould had fallen into the culture in the dish and formed a clear patch. It was a stroke of luck: if Fleming’s housekeeping had been better, if he hadn’t left the bacterium active, if the speck of Penicillium hadn’t dropped just where it did, and if the man himself failed to understand what happened, penicillin’s development might have remained further off. Even so, Fleming was unable to extract the active agent; he took notes then moved on to other research.
A decade later, understanding the importance of finding a way to isolate and reproduce the antibiotic, Florey and his team took up the challenge. It was the biochemist Ernst Chain who found the Fleming research, such as it was, with Chain and Edward Abraham the team members who worked on purifying penicillin.
There were many difficulties ahead of the team, especially lack of funding and equipment. Under Florey’s flair, energy and leadership, by Saturday 25 May 1940, taking eight mice injected with lethal doses of streptococcus bacteria, they injected four with penicillin. By Sunday, the four treated mice had survived, the other four died.
It was wartime and English companies had no capacity to manage large-scale production so, against the wishes of Chain (who believed the team should first patent the product, thus ensuring their great wealth; Florey held the quaint
English view that it was unethical to patent medical discoveries), Florey took a dangerous flight to the US. He met Department of Agriculture scientists who soon found a thick liquid, a by-product of corn production, capable of a ten-fold increase in penicillin production.
Penicillin was initially used to help wounded troops following D-Day. Thus began the antibiotic age. By the end of World War Two, several US drug companies had commenced manufacture, but it seems ever so appropriate that CSL in Australia – birthplace of Howard Florey – should be the first company to release it for public use.
And cantaloupe?
Early on, American researcher, Mary Hunt, discovered mould on cantaloupe to be twice as good again as corn liquid for the production of penicillin: It might just pay to allow your favourite melon to go mouldy first…
Sincere thanks to a 1990s ABC Science Report for much of the information used.