Lord Howard Florey
medical researcher, Nobel Laureate
1898 - 1968
"The war had nothing to do with it [the discovery of penicillin]. It
has often been said that we went hot-headed at the problem because of
the needs of the fighting forces; but that is not so. It was pure
accident that the discovery happened to be made at the time when it was
most wanted."
Lord Howard Florey
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This documentary first screened on SBS on 3 August, 2006. It is
expected that it will soon be available for sale to the public. The
accompanying promotion reads:
"As World War Two rages, a small team of scientists at Oxford
University, led by Australian
Howard Florey, make one
of the greatest discoveries in the history of medicine: penicillin. As
news of their funny yellow powder leaks out to the press, wartime
Britain looked for a hero. Instead of Florey and the Oxford team, they
choose someone else to shower with honours, Alexander Fleming, How it
happened is a fascinating story of wartime scarcity, personal conflicts,
and a sobering lesson in the damage done to truth by wartime propaganda." |