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The biography of a great and famous man requires
much research and study by the biographer, not only regarding the subject of
his portrait but also about the environment in which his hero has grown up
and lived. We are today increasingly conscious, both in health and illness,
of the important influences which heredity, on the one hand, and
environmental factors, on the other, have upon our lives and destinies. M.
Andr£ Maurois has painted this picture of Sir Alexander Fleming against the
backgrounds of boyhood on a Scottish hill farm and manhood in the
bacteriological laboratories of a London medical school. It would be idle to
deny the effects of early experiences on the Ayrshire farm or of Sir Almroth
Wright and others in the Inoculation Department at St. Mary's Hospital in
moulding the life and shaping the destiny of the discoverer of penicillin,
while he, himself, and others have been impressed by the curious
concatenation of circumstances which seemed to direct his footsteps.
But these outside influences and, later, the
glittering prizes and the adulation of kings and commoners in many lands
could not mask the innate qualities of a man who, through all his trials and
triumphs, remained staunchly true to himself and to his ancestry. For
Fleming had, to a remarkable degree, those qualities which we attribute to
the Scots: a capacity for hard and sustained work, a combative spirit which
refuses to admit defeat, a steadfastness and loyalty which creates respect
and affection, and a true humility which protects against pretentiousness
and pride. He had other great gifts which helped to make him an outstanding
scientist: keen curiosity and perceptiveness, an excellent memory, technical
inventiveness and skill of a highly artistic order, and the mental and
physical toughness that is characteristic of great men in many walks of
life-
The picture of the man and the scientist emerges
for us from the background of laboratories and test-tubes and pipettes,
antiseptics and antibiotics, Paddington and Chelsea and the country house in
Suffolk, Greece and Spain and the Americas. The appraisals and letters of
friends and colleagues are interspersed with his own terse remarks in his
diaries, notebooks and letters; and through it all goes the thread of
continuous effort to lay bare the truth about the body's fight with
infection, which was Fleming's abiding interest. It is a fascinating story
for all of us, and Fleming's part in it, leading up to the discovery of
penicillin, will surely never be forgotten. It was left to others to develop
penicillin as a lifesaving drug, but Alexander Fleming and penicillin will
always be linked together in the public mind and his name will be remembered
with those of other great men, like Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister, who
have made major contributions to the conquest of disease.
As his colleague and successor, I salute this
fine portrait of a great man.
Robert Cruickshank |
