Observation

08/02/2012
Fr. Jose Kaimlett

OBSERVATION

Penicillin is one of the most famous and fortunate accidents of the 20th century. Here’s how the popular story goes:

Alexander Fleming didn’t clean up his workstation before going on vacation one day in 1928.

When he came back, Fleming noticed that there was a strange fungus on some of his cultures.

Even stranger was that bacteria didn’t seem to thrive near those cultures.

Penicillin became the first and is still one of the most widely used antibiotics.

Louis Pasteur once said, “chance favors the prepared mind.” Dr. Fleming had such a prepared mind, and nothing escaped his observation; thus he, accidentally, invented the existence of “penicillin,” the greatest perhaps of all inventions of the 20th century, which saved millions of precious lives. Due to our lack of preparedness and want of observation any number of equally important things go un-invented.

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