Although Fleming was aware of the significance of what he had discovered he did not have the facilities or the back-up which was needed to put across his idea and develop it so it could be tested and fight infection.
In the 1930s oxford scientists Howard Florey and Ernst Chain and a team of biochemists, pathologists and chemists were motivated through scientific interest to try and solve the mystery of penicillin, at oxford they had the equipment and knowledge to look into their findings more closely and decided to look at Fleming’s with more testing involved.
A few days after the outbreak of the Second World War they asked to be funded by the government in their research into penicillin.
This research took time and a lot of testing, first they devised a combination of the latest freeze-drying equipment, then came testing on animals, which was a success, and then in 1941 the first trial human patient was tested on. This testing was successful but their was not enough because they needed more money, Florey travelled to America trying to interest drug companies of the drug but they were not in the war yet and so there were no proven methods for speeding up production. In December 1941 the USA entered the war and in 1942 given an amount of $80 million to four drug companies to mass-produce penicillin.
By June 1944 there was enough penicillin to treat all the casualties suffered on the D-day.
The main reason that penicillin was mass-produced between 1942-45, was because of scientific research had been done thoroughly and the war made people optimism about the drug because people were going to die in the war, but perhaps holding onto a hope that this drug would possibly save some of those who would die made people reassured and believe in it.
The money that was funded by both America and Britain made a huge impact of how much could be produced and helped every scientific experiment carried out at it’s full intentions.
