The first patient is treated with penicillin at Oxford
Albert Alexander, an Oxford policeman with an overwhelming staphylococcal and streptococcal infection, is given purified penicillin by Howard Florey's group. He improves dramatically over several days, then relapses and dies in March when the supply — partly recovered from his own urine — runs out. The episode establishes both the drug's efficacy and the manufacturing problem that dominated the next three years.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Antibiotics · technology · Britain first; now global · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Further observations on penicillin
Supports the first clinical administration of penicillin by the Oxford group in early 1941 and the supply constraint that ended it. V55 verification basis: not retrieved; the February 1941 date for the first patient comes from the standard secondary history.
The Lancet · 1941-08 · Partly verified
Abraham E.P., Chain E., Fletcher C.M., Florey H.W., Gardner A.D., Heatley N.G. and Jennings M.A., The Lancet, August 1941
Recorded on Antibiotics
- Fleming observes lysis around a Penicillium colony
- The first patient is treated with penicillin at Oxford
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.