Howard Florey: The Man Who Made Penicillin (Australian Lives series) [Paperback]

Lennard Bickel (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0522847129 | ISBN-13: 978-0522847123 | Publication Date: May 1, 1996

'A great fire seemed to burn within him . . . we wondered whether he would ever find the right outlet for his greatness' Sir Alan Drury

Howard Florey was the brilliant, ambitious and sometimes ruthless Australian who developed penicillin, the first antibiotic, enabling a mastery of disease and death never before imagined in human history. The penicillin epic traces the fascinating, often frustrated path of Florey's drive in Britain and the United States to isolate, test and produce the 'miracle drug' that was to empty the infectious wards and revolutionize surgery - changing the pattern of world disease.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Lennard Bickel is an eminent Australian writer and commentator on scientific affairs. Among his other books are The Southern Universe, Facing Starvation, This Accursed Land, The Deadly Element, and Shackleton's Forgotten Argonauts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 456 pages
• Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing (May 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0522847129
• ISBN-13: 978-0522847123
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,113,791 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting biography and history of Penicillin, November 21, 2009

By 

Colin Povey "cpovey" (Clearwater, FL, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Howard Florey: The Man Who Made Penicillin (Australian Lives series) (Paperback)

This is a pretty well written biography of Howard Florey, the man who 'made' penicillin. While Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, he did not pursue the work needed to make penicillin one of the most powerful drugs to ever be found.

Fleming discovered Penicillin in 1929, but could not obtain more than minute quantities of the substance. Fleming was able to show that penicillin was non-toxic to rats and could clear up some infections in rats, but was unable to go further. It took a team approach of a pathologist (Florey), a chemist (Chain), and a ingenious biologist, Norman Heatley ten years to bring penicillin to the world.

This book clearly brings up the famous saying about penicillin: Without Fleming, there would be no Florey, without Florey, no Chain, without Chain, no Heatley, and without Heatley, there would be no penicillin.

I have also read Gladys Hobby's book on the history of penicillin, and this book on Florey is a better overall book, especially for laymen, as the Hobby book contains a lot of information on the organic chemistry of penicillin. The Hobby book does contain more details about the development of penicillin, the many versions of penicillin, penicillin after the war, etc., but overall, this is the better book.

One interesting item is just brushed over in this book. During WWII, everything that was produced was assigned a priority, based on it's importance. The highest level, meaning they got essentially whatever they asked for, was AAA+, and only one thing had an AAA+ rating, the Manhattan project. Next in line was AAA priority, and only three things had AAA priority: Higgins boats and Penicillin were two of the three. This shows the importance of Penicillin and of Flory to winning World War II.

Howard Florey has been called the most important Australian ever, and after reading this biography, I can see why many say that.