Albert Alexander

On February 12, 1941, a 43 year-old policeman named Albert Alexander of England became the first human to receive penicillin.

One day in December 1940, a rose thorn scratched his cheek. The scratch grew into a sore and then an infection, which metastasized to the rest of his face and scalp. Alexander was hospitalized, during which his face and head were covered with abscesses. The abscesses were so extreme that his left eye had to be surgically removed.

Two months later he became the guinea pig for the powerful new drug penicillin. Up until that time, penicillin had only been tested on mice, so the doctors feared that too big a dose might instantly kill the patient. Alexander received 200 mg intravenously. Within a day he gained back his appetite, his temperature dropped, and his skin began to heal. But with such short quantity of penicillin on hand, the doctors diligently extracted small amounts of the precious substance from his urine and reinjected it back into his bloodstream. It wasn't enough, however, and Albert Alexander died on March 15.

But his partial response to this new medicine symbolized our vulnerability to bacteria and our ability to defeat them. Penicillin soon became available on a macro level and helped save many lives in the waning years of WWII.