Alexander Fleming: The Scientists and Inventors Series (Dramatized)

In 1928 Alexander Fleming came across some mould in an old culture dish; from it came one of the greatest discoveries of medicine: Penicillin, an antibiotic that kills bacteria without producing toxic side-effects. However, it wasn't until 1940, when two scientists at Oxford succeeded in demonstrating that the new drug could be purified and mass-produced, that the treatment of infections and infectious diseases was revolutionized. Fleming insisted on the importance of chance or luck in all scientific endeavour; without it Fleming would never have been a medical doctor, and humanity might still be waiting for the miracle of Penicillin.