POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Ampoules and packaging by Commonwealth Serum Laboratories

Object No. 87/1035

These are early examples of penicillin produced by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories in Melbourne in 1944. The discovery, development and subsequent use of penicillin can be considered one of the most important breakthroughs in medical history. It was an international innovation with major contributions from Australians. Penicillin works by preventing large numbers of germs from growing. As it is an organic substance it can be used on, or in, the human body. It was the first antibiotic and the first medicine that not only treated a disease but prevented and killed infections that did develop. Without antibiotics; infections, even of relatively minor wounds, could become worse or lead to death. Thousands of glass bulbs or ampoules like these were used by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories to produce and store Australia's first penicillin. Each one had the air pumped out and was then sealed with a flame. The batch number and date of manufacture are printed on the glass. Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming by accident. In 1928 airborne mould spores landed on a dish he had infected with staphylococcus bacteria for an experiment. Although the mould killed the bacteria, Fleming did not explore the possibilities of this finding. Ten years later an Australian scientist, Howard Florey, and his team began studying penicillin mould in a lab at Oxford University. Fearing a bomb may destroy their lab in a wartime air raid, members of the team rubbed spores of mould inside their pockets. If they survived, the spores would too, and they did! The team went on to successfully test penicillin on mice then on people. But the primitive production method meant that they could barely make enough for one adult. An injured policemen was Florey's first patient. He was responding well but died when they ran out of penicillin. Realising the drug's potential to treat war injuries, Florey went to the USA in 1941 to find factories to make it. Florey overcame enormous difficulties in making penicillin therapy a reality. The drug saved thousands of soldiers' lives. In 1944 Australia became the first country to make penicillin available to civilians. However, at that time Florey warned that penicillin was not a cure-all for everything but responded well to carbuncles, boils, sore throats, pneumonia, diphtheria, V.D., blood poisoning, meningitis, lockjaw, gangrene wounds, anthrax, woody jaw, and food poisoning but was not effective against T.B., cholera, dysentery, cancer or the plague. In 1945 Florey, his co-worker Chain and Fleming won the Nobel Prize.