1941

History of penicillin

Albert Alexander Begins the Oxford Team's First Full Penicillin Treatment

The drug was so scarce that the researchers recovered penicillin from Alexander's urine and injected it back into him.

12 February 1941: a drip at the Radcliffe Infirmary

On 12 February 1941, the physician Charles Fletcher began giving penicillin intravenously to Albert Alexander, a 43-year-old police officer, at Oxford's Radcliffe Infirmary.

Alexander had a severe staphylococcal and streptococcal facial infection that had spread despite conventional treatment. Promising animal experiments had persuaded Howard Florey's team to test whether their concentrated preparation could treat an otherwise intractable human infection.

Within approximately 24 hours, Alexander's clinical condition began to improve.

Then the supply ran out

Producing enough penicillin to treat a single sepsis case then required roughly 2,000 litres of culture fluid. The team recovered active penicillin from Alexander's urine and administered it again.

Within four to five days the available stock was exhausted, before the infection had been eradicated. Alexander relapsed and died about a month later, in mid-March; Oxford's departmental account gives 14 March, while a peer-reviewed medical history gives the 15th.

It was the limited supply, not drug toxicity, that ended the course.

First in what sense

Four later Oxford patients with less advanced infections were reported to have recovered after penicillin treatment. Norman Heatley had developed the practical extraction and production methods, and Edward Abraham had used chromatography to remove impurities before the trials.

Alexander was not the first human given penicillin. Cecil Paine had treated eye infections with it in 1930, Martin Dawson's Columbia group gave it systemically in October 1940, and Fletcher had tested the Oxford preparation's toxicity in a cancer patient, Elva Akers, on 17 January 1941.

Oxford sources describe the familiar rose-thorn origin of his infection only as something that "is said"; other research associates his facial lacerations with an air raid.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 10 sources 2 audit passes Date corrected

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Date corrected. The research places this at 1941-02-12.

What the sources leave uncertain

The February 12 date and Alexander’s treatment are well documented, but the claim that he was the first person ever given penicillin intravenously is not secure.
Martin Dawson’s Columbia group administered penicillin systemically to patients in October 1940, and Fletcher intravenously tested the Oxford preparation’s toxicity in cancer patient Elva Akers on January 17, 1941. Alexander is best described as the Oxford team’s first full therapeutic case or first systematic treatment.
Oxford sources cautiously describe the familiar rose-thorn origin as something that “is said.” Other research associates his facial lacerations with an air raid, so the rose story should not be stated as fact.
Sources differ on Alexander’s death date: Oxford’s departmental account gives March 14, while a peer-reviewed medical history and other records give March 15.