From a Contaminated Dish to a World's Remedy

In September 1928, Alexander Fleming returned from vacation to his laboratory at St. Mary's Hospital in London and found a petri dish he had left uncovered. Mold had contaminated his staphylococcus culture — a ruined experiment by any measure. But around that blue-green mold, the bacteria had died. Fleming noted the curious observation, published his findings, and moved on. For over a decade, penicillin remained little more than a laboratory footnote.

Then in 1940, Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain at Oxford University took up what Fleming had set aside. They purified the substance, proved it could save infected mice, and began treating human patients. But they faced a devastating obstacle: they could not produce nearly enough. Their supply was so scarce they filtered patients' urine to recover traces of the drug.

Desperate for a breakthrough, Florey traveled to the United States in 1941. At the Northern Regional Research Laboratory in Peoria, Illinois, scientists discovered that corn steep liquor — a waste product from corn processing — boosted penicillin yields dramatically. Then in 1943, a lab assistant named Mary Hunt brought in a moldy cantaloupe from a Peoria market. Its mold strain produced two hundred times more penicillin than Fleming's original. By D-Day, June 1944, enough penicillin existed to treat every wounded Allied soldier.

A forgotten petri dish. A waste product. A rotting cantaloupe. Romans 8:28 promises that God works all things together for good. Not some things — all things. The Almighty who heals does not require pristine ingredients. He takes what the world discards and fashions from it a remedy that saves millions.