Alexander Bell Biography

Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) Scottish inventor, most

notably credited with inventing the modern telephone.
A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with
a man is what he makes of himself.
Alexander Bell
Alexander was brought up in Edinburgh Scotland. From an early
age he had an inquisitive mind and became fascinated with
acoustics and voice patterns. This interest in acoustics and
communication was partly inspired by his mothers growing
deafness. He devoted considerable time to providing solutions for
the blind and became well known in that field. He helped
American Helen Keller to find treatment for her deaf-blindess
In 1870 he went to live in Canada where he developed a method of teaching speech to the deaf and in 1873 he
became a professor of vocal physiology at Boston University. In 1876 he developed a patent for the telephone,
something he had developed during long evening sessions with the mechanic Thomas Watson.
The first telephone call was made on August 3rd 1876, where he successfully placed a call to another house 6km
away on an improvised piece of telephone wire. The first spoken words were:
Mr. Watson Come here I want to see you.
This proved it was possible to communicate over long distances for the first time.
in 1879, the Bell Telephone company bought Edisons patent for carbon microphone and this enabled a big
improvement to Bells initial telephone design. The Bell telecommunications company proved very successful. By
1886, over 150,000 people in the US, owned a telephone. It went on to become one of the most successful modern
inventions. Ironically, Bell wasnt over-keen on his invention. He later felt it detracted from his other scientific
works, and he himself wouldnt have a telephone in his office.
Later inventions of Bell included, the photophone, a device that transmitted sound on a beam of light and the
gramophone, which recorded sound on a wax disc. He made many important discoveries and inventions throughout
his life. He wrote of his passion for inventing:
The inventorlooks upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants to improve whatever he
sees, he wants to benefit the world; he is haunted by an idea. The spirit of invention possesses him, seeking
materialization.
Towards the end of his life, he carried out research in the field of aerodynamics, looking at giant kites and
hydrofoils.
Bell died of anaemia on 2nd August 1922, in his Scottish estate of Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia.

Alexander Fleming Biography

Sir Alexander Fleming (6 August 1881 11 March 1955) was born in East Ayrshire,
Scotland in 1881. He was a biologist and pharmacologist most famous for his
discovery of the antibiotic substance penicillin in 1928. He was awarded a Nobel
Prize, jointly with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain for medicine in 1945
After four years of working in a shipping company, an inheritance gave Fleming the
chance to train as a physician at St Marys hospital London. From here he moved to
the research department, specialising in the relative new science of bacteriology.
During the First World War, Fleming served in the medical corps and served in the
hospitals of the Western Front, during his war service he was mentioned in
dispatches.
Flemings greatest breakthrough occurred in 1928, when, quite by chance, he discovered an effective antibacterial
agent
When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didnt plan to revolutionize all medicine by
discovering the worlds first antibiotic, or bacteria killer, But I guess that was exactly what I did.
Alexander Fleming
Fleming had left a jar of mould unattended during his August vacation. On returning to work he noticed that a jar
of Staphylococcus bacteria a green yellow mould had covered the dish except one area which was clear of the
bacteria rather like a halo effect.
This was Flemings great Eureka moment the moment he correctly deducted that some antibacterial agent had
crept in and successfully stopped the bacteria. He later identified this antibacterial agent as a rare form of
Penicillium notatum which had drifted in from a mycology lab nearby. He later talked about the importance of
chance in this discovery.
I have been trying to point out that in our lives chance may have an astonishing influence and, if I may offer advice
to the young laboratory worker, it would be thisnever neglect an extraordinary appearance or happening. It may
beusually is, in facta false alarm that leads to nothing, but may on the other hand be the clue provided by fate
to lead you to some important advance.
Alexander Fleming (Lecture at Harvard University. Quoted in Joseph Sambrook, David W. Russell, Molecular
Cloning (2001), Vol. 1, 153)
In 1929, he published his work in British Journal of Experimental Pathology. However, for the next decade his
discovery remained relatively unknown. He was not able to produce penicillin to inject rats in sufficient quantities.
By 1932, he had effectively abandoned his research on penicillin.
It is the lone worker who makes the first advance in a subject: the details may be worked out by a team, but the
prime idea is due to the enterprise, thought, and perception of an individual.
Alexander Fleming.
However, in 1939, a team of scientists at Oxford University began work on trying to make a large quantity of
antibacterial agents. The team under Howard Florey and Dr Ernst Chain started to work using Flemings penicillin
culture. They were able to extract the penicillin in sufficient quantities to start producing it on a commercial scale.
This enabled them to start producing the worlds first antibiotics. This revolutionised medical science and helped to

eradicate many bacterial infections such as Pneumonia, syphilis, gonorrhoea, diphtheria, scarlet fever and many
childbirth infections.
After the production of penicillin, the public wanted a key person to identify with the discovery. Florey and Chain
were not too keen for public profile so the role of Alexander Fleming was highlighted as the person who first
discovered the agent. Fleming was hailed as the hero of the antibiotic generation a discovery which helped save
many millions of lives during the Second World War and after.
For his work, he was jointly awarded a Nobel prize in 1945.
He died from a heart attack in 1955, and was buried at Westminster Cathedral.

Quotes by Alexander Fleming

Fleming On Cultures of Penicillium
While working with staphylococcus variants a number of culture-plates were set aside on the laboratory bench and
examined from time to time. In the examinations these plates were necessarily exposed to the air and they became
contaminated with various micro-organisms. It was noticed that around a large colony of a contaminating mould
the staphylococcus colonies became transparent and were obviously undergoing lysis. Subcultures of this mould
were made and experiments conducted with a view to ascertaining something of the properties of the bacteriolytic
substance which had evidently been formed in the mould culture and which had diffused into the surrounding
medium. It was found that broth in which the mould had been grown at room temperature for one or two weeks had
acquired marked inhibitory, bacteriocidal and bacteriolytic properties to many of the more common pathogenic
bacteria.
Sir Alexander Fleming
On the Antibacterial Action of Cultures of a Penicillium, with Special Reference to their Use in the Isolation of
B. Influenzae, British Journal of Experimental Pathology, 1929, 10, 226.
One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.