Talk:History of penicillin

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 January 2019 and 10 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Swinkleman, RandyGreeves. Peer reviewers: RFoley2, Clandis0217, Mghgd.

Above undated message substituted from

talk) 23:38, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Untitled

Most info here comes from Kevin Brown's book, but it seemed silly to put it as reference for almost every paragraph. Perhaps there is a better way?DanielDemaret 17:24, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

date of fleming's discovery

on the timeline here, it is shown as 1929, but in the penicillin article, it's 1928. Penicillin#History $[[Media:Insertformulahere]]$

The 1961 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica vol.9 p.371 Title: Fleming, Sir Alexander - states that his discovery of the antibacterial powers of the mold from which penicillin is derived was made in 1928 and was a "triumph of accident and shrewd observation." The entry goes on to state that he published his results in the Journal of Experimental Pathology in 1929. Spyglasses 10:00, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

another father of penicillin

A Romanian bacteriologist, Victor Babes (1854-1926) has also been credited with the discovery of penicillin, before Fleming. I don't have an online reference though... 160.39.48.173 (talk) 20:06, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Events in the Article

following the timeline here I have read now the personal Articles of John Tyndall and Joseph Lister. In both Articles the Relationship to this Events is not mentioned with a word. -- Hartmann Schedel (talk) 18:55, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fleming

According to a PBS program on this subject, Fleming did not advocate treating humans directly with penicillin, because he was one of the doctors who had shown the the use of the older antiseptics on war woulds did more harm than good. This is an important point, because it indicates that he did not discover it as a medicine. This is a case, like the recent CCD Nobel prize, where the main credit went to the basic researcher rather than the one who found the important application of the discovery. David R. Ingham (talk) 22:12, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think David R. Ingham or PBS misunderstood Fleming's concern. Yes, he (and others of his time) thought it unlikely that an chemical could be both antibacterial and non-toxic. Although Paul Ehrlich's arsphenamine was known, it was also difficult to use and not non-toxic. It wasn't until after Prontosil and sulfanilamide were discovered that the idea of safe and effective antibiotic therapy was widely accepted. Nevertheless, Fleming did do what we today would call PK and drug stability tests, with very discouraging results. It was the latter that likely discouraged him from testing penicillin in a challenge test. Reference: Macfarlane, G. "Alexander Fleming in Fact and Fantasy" New Scientist Mar 1, 1984, pp. 26-28. --Zeamays (talk) 20:04, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Frederick S Dennis, 1885 (New York); Polotebnov, Manessien, 1872 (Russia); Other Russians

Milton Wainwright, Miracle Cure: The Story of Antibiotics, Blackwell, (1990), page 35, mentions Frederick S Dennis. As I recall from having dug out the original papers, Dennis was a surgeon or dentist who presented his study of Penicillium molds at a scientific meeting and included a display of test tubes with various organisms and results showing inhibition in the presence of P. molds.

Wainwright also mentions some early Russian claims but I have never been able to locate the source documents (even with the help of a Russian colleague in Moscow):
Polotebnov, Manessien, 1872 (Russia)
Lebedinskii, 1877 (Russia)
Tartakovskii, 1904 (Russia)
AdderUser (talk) 20:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Factual accuracy tag

The article presents a long list of people observing bacterial growth being inhibited by molds and antedotes about ancient societies using mold to treat infection. But there is not evidence presented that any of this has anything to do with penicillin.

Not all molds produce penicillin. Not even all penicillium strains do. If they do demonstrate antibacterial activity, it is in many cases due to antimicrobial substances other than penicillin. And the examples of ancient treatments of infection using mold do not provide any evidence of efficacy to back up the claim that the molds actually had antibacterial activity. Phlebotomy was used to treat all manner of illness for over a millenium, and we all know that it doesn't do anything.

Its an interesting history, but none of the information in the article persuasively demonstrates that Fleming was not the first to demonstrate the antibacterial activity of what is now known as penicillin.

talk) 02:14, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply

]

Penicillin is like ANY invention -- once it has been discovered, you can point to a million other bits of prior art and say, Tut tut, it was OBVIOUS. That's what the Patent Office tries to do to you when you apply for a patent; they just Google for the words you use to describe your invention/discovery, and off they go. I have a special feeling for Dr Fleming and his discovery, since I discovered a cure for bladder infections that's the next thing after penicillin. But this "obviousness" thing is the bane of patenting nowadays; it's the principal test the USPTO employs, as I understand it. This article on History of Penicillin is a great example reaching back to the days before we even knew about microbes, much less had seen them. It's almost but not quite as bad as having to deal with the cranberry people, with the UTIs. Richard8081 (talk) 20:40, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. How about this replacement?

"but he was not the first to use its properties in medicine. " might be replaced with "he may not have been the first to use its properties in medicine. This is a list of prior incidents similar cases, although there is no conclusive evidence that the same substance was used."

There are many articles suggesting that he may not have used it first. This way, that issue is addressed, at least. " Star Lord - 星爵 (talk) 11:58, 20 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Merge proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Not done. There is some interest in moving history info from the penicillin article to here, but this would merit broader discussion at that article. Ajpolino (talk) 21:14, 2 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This article doesn't really seem to fit the title. Everything before 1870 is about the history of using fungi as antibiotics. Everything from there to 1928 is about antibiotic properties of certain Penicillium species. It's not until maybe 1920 and after that the events are actually about the history of penicillin. The penicillin article actually has a pretty great history section. Maybe we could merge this article into that history section, as well as a section on the Penicillium page about "History" or "Role in medicine" or something. Thoughts? Ajpolino (talk) 04:47, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be fine with a merge. It looks like the majority of the information in the History of penicillin article is already in the history section of the Penicillin article, so a merge wouldn't even be that great of a change. One thing we would want to consider is how it would affect the Penicillin article. Would we include the table, or just insert information that wasn't already in the penicillin article? The history section of the penicillin article is also pretty long, so a couple people may raise the issue that content should be moved from the history section to the history article. That's also legitimate, but I think the current merge proposal is fine. I'll notify the talk page at the Penicillin article so that anyone watching the page will know that this discussion is happening. Icebob99 (talk) 19:26, 14 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose IMO more of the history should be moved from the main penicillin article to the subarticle on the history of penicillin. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:05, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Pasteur and penicillin

The situation described in the outline reads like a variation of the following incident described in Paul de Kruif's 1926 Microbe Hunters:

"He had not the precise methods of growing microbes pure—it took the patience of Koch to devise such things—and one day to his disgust, Pasteur observed that a bottle of boiled urine in which he had planted anthrax bacilli was swarming with unbidden guests, contaminating microbes of the air that had sneaked in. The following morning he observed that there were no anthrax germs left at all; they had been completely choked out by the bacilli from the air.

At once Pasteur jumped to a fine idea: “If the harmless bugs from the air choke out the anthrax bacilli in the bottle, they will do it in the body too! It is a kind of dog-eat-dog!” shouted Pasteur, and at once he put Roux and Chamberland to work on the fantastic experiment of giving guinea-pigs anthrax and then shooting doses of billions of harmless microbes into them—beneficent germs which were to chase the anthrax bacilli round the body and devour them—they were to be like the mongoose which kills cobras. . .

Pasteur gravely announced: “That there were high hopes for the cure of disease from this experiment,” but that is the last you hear of it, for Pasteur was never a man to give the world of science the benefit of studying his failures."

Is Pasteur's supposed "discovery" of penicillin a mangling/misunderstanding of this incident?

It is clear that in this incident had nothing to do with mold and based on Kruif's timeline it appears to be in the right time.--Professor Phantasm (talk) 23:38, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Early research

Thanks for this addition, Swinkleman. To hopefully make it a little clearer, I've re-worded to

In the early stages of penicillin research, most species of Penicillium were generally referred to as Penicillium glaucum, so we cannot identify the actual strains used. Thus, it is difficult to tell whether it was really penicillin preventing bacterial growth.

Can you please confirm whether this preserves the intended meaning? I can't read the cited source as it is not in English. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 01:22, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thank you for the edit. Adrian J. Hunter I'll see if I can fix the source.Swinkleman (talk) 18:50, 11 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Source url fixed Swinkleman (talk) 19:03, 11 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

New Edits

In the next few weeks I will be adding a lot of information about the manufacturing process of penicillin and its evolution over time.RandyGreeves (talk) 15:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am about to add to the First Isolation and successful treatment section Swinkleman (talk) 15:24, 12 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Penicillin

I added a new section about penicillin resistance. Antibiotic resistance is a new problem that arose with the use of penicillin.

I moved a sentence from Stabilization and mass production to this section, and added some info to the section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Swinkleman (talk • contribs) 17:32, 12 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Early history of Penicillin

Hi, I want to note that the phrase "John Parkinson, King's Herbarian, who advocated the use of mold in his book on pharmacology." was referenced using a secondary paper from "Kate Gould, Antibiotics: from prehistory to the present day, Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, Volume 71, Issue 3, March 2016, Pages 572–575, https://doi.org/10.1093/jac/dkv484". I revised the online version of the original book here "https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/256142#page/13/mode/1up", and I couldn't find the claim or the original "advocation" of John Parkinson. If someone has better research skills, please edit the sentence because it doesn't seem to be reliable. Thank you. Mycoandres (talk) 00:11, 28 February 2022 (UTC)Mycoandres[reply]

Very good information. It seems that Parkinson did not specifically mention moulds as medicinal; but later (modern) inferences indicate that some medicinal practices he described were based on Penicillium mould. For early description, see Cranch, 1943, JAMA. Chhandama (talk) 05:31, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

However, neither are primary sources who back-up the claims. I strongly suggest delete or add a tag of warning, because none of that "In England in 1640, the idea of using mould as a form of medical treatment was recorded by apothecaries such as the botanist John Parkinson, who documented the use of moulds to treat infections in his book on pharmacology. In 17th-century Poland, wet bread was mixed with spider webs (which often contained fungal spores) to treat wounds. The technique was mentioned by Henryk Sienkiewicz in his 1884 novel With Fire and Sword." is real documented history or primary sources. Mycoandres (talk) 23:46, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So you looked up the sources and what did they say?

Source: " This theme of the benefit of moulds continued over the years, with references by John Parkinson (1567–1640) (Figure 1) in his book Theatrum Botanicum, published in 1640"

Article: "In England in 1640, the idea of using mould as a form of medical treatment was recorded by apothecaries such as the botanist John Parkinson, who documented the use of moulds to treat infections in his book on pharmacology."

---

Source: "Anyone who reads the Trilogy of Henryk Sienkiewicz knows, that in the former Poland wounds were treated with bread kneaded with spider's web. And on spider's web, of course, there are plenty of fungal spores, also Penicillium. So antibiotic treatment has been used in our country for centuries"

Article: "In 17th-century Poland, wet bread was mixed with spider webs (which often contained fungal spores) to treat wounds."

---

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:45, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The isolation section is too brief

Considering how important is this part of the 12-year-long penicillin epic, the section is surprisingly short, almost shorter than Alexander Fleming#Purification and stabilisation. Could someone with a better knowledge of the subject than me please at least copy everything which is possible from there and add some more details on why it was possible in 1939 to do what Fleming and his colleagues struggled with for years before? Ain92 (talk) 14:54, 7 June 2022 (UTC) PS TIL about "penicillin girls".[reply]

I have expanded this section. The reasons though are: (1) Florey was a first rate scientist while Fleming was an ordinary one; (2) he assembled and directed a team of experts on a concerted attack on all aspects of the problem; (3) who persisted until they succeeded. It is worth noting that Fleming and his associates did not struggle "for years" but gave up after just one. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:28, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

Unsuccessful. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:50, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This review is
transcluded from Talk:History of penicillin/GA1
. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 15:40, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

I'll have a look at this one. Not an expert in the subject matter by any means, so please do bear with me.

Comments

On first read, this is a hugely comprehensive article and does a good job of telling the story clearly, even to someone with relatively little grasp of the technical details. Considering its immense length, I am impressed by the quality and accuracy of the prose. Most of the below are points of grammar or clarity: I'll do an image review and source checks once I've gone through the text. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 15:40, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking on a major assignment. I had considered splitting the article in two. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK, that's the first pass done. I still need to do spot-checks for TSI, CLOP and so on, but that's probably best left until after the comments below have been dealt with to the extent that they're going to be. Again, nice work. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments

Lead

which he named penicillin in 1928: italicise penicillin per
MOS:WORDSASWORDS
.
Y Because of the proximity of so many italics for Latin words, I have exercised the MOS alternative of quotation marks. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~Penicillium notatum (now Penicillium rubens): "now known as..." or similar, to clarify that it's the same mould under a different name?~~
Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~Third paragraph: three consecutive sentences start with They [verbed] (two are they developed) - consider mixing up for elegance.~~
Y Re-worded to make it more elegant and reduce the use of "developed". The triple "they" here is deliberate, though, a form of repetition as a rhetorical device. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that rhetorical device is really right for an encyclopaedia – it reminded me a little of Pericles's Funeral Oration – but style is almost a non-issue for GA. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 07:34, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ten years later, in 1939: suggest simply in 1939; the previous events were in 1928, so 1939 seems like 11 years later to me.
The text wanted to emphasises that nothing happened for ten years. This was something that Fleming and others tried to hide. Without this it might appear that he worked on it until 1939. Changed to "over ten years later" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Could we simply say as much: that Fleming practically ceased work on penicillin, and little progress was made in its study until... UndercoverClassicist (talk) 07:34, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:50, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
After the war: clarify which one, and when it ended (
WP:POPE
).
Y When my grandfather mentioned "the war" he always meant The Big One back in 1914-1918. But I normally write military history articles, and to most of their readers "1939" and "1945" tells them all they need to know. Changed to "After the
Second World War ended in 1945" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Agriculture became a major user of penicillin: it feels a bit weird to use an abstract noun (agriculture) in such a not-abstract sentence; consider Penicillin came to be widely used in agriculture or similar.
That doesn't mean the same thing. Aluminium is widely used to make drink cans, but that doesn't mean that industry is a major user of aluminium.
Yes, fair enough. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:05, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Early history

in his 1884 book With Fire and Sword: I'd clarify that this is a novel, lest the reader think that Sienkiewicz was a historian or scientist.
Y Changed "book" to "novel". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Suggest placing England before Poland to avoid a slightly jarring jump back in time.
Y Moved. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Could King's Hebrarian be replaced or expanded with a less opaque description?
Y Changed to "botanist". And linked to his article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Early scientific evidence

When did Burdon-Sanderson's observations take place? They seem to be earlier than the 1870s, which slightly contradicts the first sentence of this section. What was his first job at St. Mary's?
Y Not covered by the source, so deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do we have any idea of when the nurse at KCH was treated? I'd also suggest clarifying that it's in London.
Y Not in the source, so deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Robert Koch discovered that a bacterium (Bacillus anthracis) was the causative pathogen of anthrax, which became the first demonstration that a specific bacterium caused a specific disease, and the first direct evidence of germ theory of diseases: the last comma is tricky: was Koch's discovery the first direct evidence for germ theory? If so, the comma should be removed.
Y Yes, it was. Deleted the comma. I personally think it is is fine, but whatever. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
cultures of the anthrax bacilli: I may be wrong, but think this should either be of anthrax bacilli or of the anthrax bacillum.
Y I don't know either. Deleted "the". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It feels weird to clarify that Brussels (a capital city) is in Belgium when not clarifying that Lyon is in France; I'd suggest cutting Belgium, which would also make the sentence flow better.
Y Cut. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Gratia called the antibacterial agent as "mycolysate" (killer mould).: the as feels out of place, and mycolysate doesn't straightforwardly mean "killer mould" (it means "mould dissolver"). Did Gratia use both terms?
Y Deleted "as". And "killer mould", as it appears to be a Wikipedian translation. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comptes Rendus Des Séances de La Société de Biologie et de Ses Filiales: French capitalisation usually capitalises only the first word and proper nouns in a title, so Comptes rendus des séances de la Société de Biologie et de ses filiales.
Y Changed capitalisation. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The long quote from Pasteur and Joubert is cited to Florey 1946. Is it a direct quotation? If so, I'd change the citation to "Quoted in...".
Yes and no. The original is in French, which you can read here. The quotation is Florey's translation. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, so "Quoted and translated in..." UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:05, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mould discovery

Recommend consistency on whether it's e.g. Scottish physician Alexander Fleming, the Scottish physician Alexander Fleming, or a Scottish physician, Alexander Fleming.
Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~Is "research scholar" quite the right term? I've heard "research assistant" or "research student", but never this.~~
Y Yes. A research scholar is a college student or graduate who works on projects in a specific field for a university or organization. As a research scholar, you work with professors and other professionals in your field of study and focus on uncovering new information that can be published in academic or trade journals. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. My academic background is in old-fashioned places, where they have "[Junior] Research Fellows" as something analogous to a postdoc; you'd describe a person as a JRF but not normally as someone's JRF ("she's a Research Fellow in the Department of Engineering", but not "she's Prof. Smith's Research Fellow"). Is "research scholar" used in that way in sources, particularly British English ones? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 07:34, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It is what the sources say. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:50, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 08:32, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~P. notatum was described by Swedish chemist Richard Westling in 1811. From then on, Fleming's mould...: the phrasing is a bit confusing, since it wasn't in any sense Fleming's in 1811.~~
Y Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Whole genome sequence and phylogenetic analysis in 2011 revealed that Fleming's mould belongs to P. rubens, a species described by Belgian microbiologist Philibert Biourge in 1923, and also that P. chrysogenum is a different species: I don't see the relevant of the last bit: surely, if it's P. rubens, it's self-evident that it's a different species to P. chrysogenum?
Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In 1966, La Touche told Hare that he had given Fleming 13 specimens of fungi (10 from his lab) and only one from his lab was showing penicillin-like antibacterial activity: per
MOS:NUM
, we should be consistent within a passage of text as to whether numbers are written in words or figures. Personally, I'd normally use words for twenty and below, but I'm a verbose humanities-ist.
Y Me too. Switched to words. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
without any effect. It probably was: clarify it.
Y Re-worded. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
his colleague-surgeon Arthur Dickson Wright for clinical test in 1928: better, I think, as his colleague, surgeon Arthur Dickson Wright, for clinical testing in 1928.
Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
there are no records of its specific use: as opposed to non-specific use: what does specific mean here?
Y Looks like a weasel word. Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
the drug did not penetrate deep enough: not quite clear: into the skin?
Y Yes. Clarified. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Suggest paraphrasing the lengthy quotation from G.E. Breen to "asked Fleming whether penicillin would ever have a practical application" or similar.
Y paraphrased as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"the main facts emerging from a very comprehensive study [of penicillin] in which a large team of workers is engaged... does not appear to have been considered as possibly useful from any other point of view.": this quote, as currently cut, is ungrammatical: the plural noun facts cannot be the subject of the singular verb does.
Y Replaced with the proper quote.
Should alcohol be ethanol?
Y Source says "alcohol", but penicillin is soluble in ethanol. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is penicillin soluble in chloroform? The article implies as much but doesn't directly say.
Y Yes. Explicitly stated this, with a source. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Moving on to ophthalmia neonatorum, an infection in babies, he achieved the first cure on 25 November 1930, four patients (one adult, the others infants) with eye infections.: this is a little unclear. Probably worth clarifying that it's an eye infection in babies: how could an adult pick it up?
Y Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid the complete sentence no longer makes sense to me: Moving on to ophthalmia neonatorum, an eye infection in babies, he achieved the first cure on 25 November 1930, four patients (one adult, the others infants) with eye infections.: did he cure one case of ophthalmia neonatorum on 25 November, and subsequently cure (three, four?) other patients with (different) eye infection? The last clause in particular has gone a little awry, grammatically. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:05, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Y re-worded. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

cident as contamination by other bacteria rather than by mould.}}:

WP:DUEWEIGHT

seems to be a consideration here. Is this now the general view on what happened? If not, and de Kruif's idea is a minority view, I think this placement gives undue weight to it; a footnote might be more appropriate. Is Microbe Hunters a book?

Y Yes, it is a book. It is in the References. Deleted the assertion that Pasteur thought it was a mould, which is not supported by the sources. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd go with de Kruif's 1926 book Microbe Hunters, then. My DUEWEIGHT worry remains: what's the general view of de Kruif's idea today? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:05, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Y I think there is a misunderstanding here. The point is that Pasteur noticed an antibiotic reaction, but did not attribute it to mould, but to the action of bacteria (a reasonable but incorrect guess). Re-worded to make this point clearer. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As this article's subject has strong national ties to the UK (
WP:ENGVAR
), I'd advise against the Americanism vacation.
In the UK it means a university teaching break. So the usage is correct here. I could change it to "the summer break". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think "the summer break" is a good idea; we do use vacation (certainly at old-fashioned places) for the university breaks, but you'd almost certainly specify in that context ("Hawking spent the Michaelmas Vacation in London", or "after the Lent Term, Crick worked through the vacation"): you wouldn't use it, as here, non-specifically as "a vacation". UndercoverClassicist (talk) 07:34, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Y Changed to "summer break". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The original colony of this mould, which proved to be Penicillium notatum, [sic]: is the sic because it wasn't, in fact, P. notatum? Before the comma, if so, but as this is a factual mistake rather than a grammatical one, I'd suggest replacing with an explanatory footnote.
Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:09, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is it true, as the article suggests, that the mould was not in fact P. notatum? If so, I'd certainly use a clarifying footnote so that we can report the original belief without misleading the reader. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:42, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The article does not suggest it, it explicitly states, backed up with a reliable source, that "Whole-genome sequence and phylogenetic analysis in 2011 revealed that Fleming's mould belongs to P. rubens". But this was not known until 2011. I don't see the need for a footnote along the lines of "as noted above, in 2011 Fleming's mould was found to actually belong to P. rubens". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is now in another article, so the point is moot for present purposes. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 09:32, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Isolation

Explain briefly what a bacteriophage is, as it's important to what follows.
Y Not really, but added. The importance here is that a sample of penicillin was on hand when Florey decided to research it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:20, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure on the logic as to when sums of money are given with or without their present-day equivalents: I'd suggest using some sort of consistent system here.
Some editors thought that there was no need for multiple ones near each other. Added a couple more. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:20, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd briefly explain why ether is/was so dangerous before talking about a "much less dangerous" chemical.
Y "Ethers have a long history of causing laboratory fires and explosions." They also have been known to cause deaths from exposure. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:20, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Most laboratory containers did not provide a large, flat area, and so were an uneconomical use of incubator space, so glass bottles laid on their sides were used: I'm not sure I fully understand this, but perhaps it would help to know what shape the incubator was?
There's a image. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:20, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Yup: my issue is that glass bottles laid on their sides don't provide a large, flat area either, so I'm not sure how the two halves of the sentence go together. Images are fine but shouldn't be used for anything it's essential that the reader understand, since some of our users can't access them (e.g. because of visual impairments, or because they use the auto-censor which defaults to blurring them). UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:05, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  - Y I have linked to the article on incubators. An incubator looks like a refrigerator. I have made the point clearer. A description of the containers follows in the next sentence.
    Works well as reordered. UndercoverClassicist (talk)
a brief note as to why 37°C is a sensible temperature for this? More widely, the article is inconsistent about whether to use (and convert) Celsius or Fahrenheit.
Y All measurements are in metric, per
MOS:METRIC. Where the source is an imperial measurement, a conversion is provided. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:20, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

I've made this point later on, but I'd advise giving the sourced number first, even if it's imperial: converting implies rounding, and it's more honest to say that Fleming measured someone's height as six foot three (which is what actually showed on his tape measure, what he read out and what he wrote down) and then convert into cm for the reader's benefit.UndercoverClassicist (talk) 08:35, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It would be my preference too, but
MOS:METRIC says to use metric first. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
So it does - all's well here, then. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 14:42, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The passage on Florey's application to the Rockefeller foundation could be trimmed for excess detail.
This becomes very important later on. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:20, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Having now read on to the point where it does, I see what you mean. However, I'm not sure we really need the whole of this:

Florey felt that more would be required. On 1 November 1939, Henry M. "Dusty" Miller Jr from the Natural Sciences Division of the Rockefeller Foundation paid Florey a visit. Miller was enthusiastic about the project. He encouraged Florey to apply for funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and recommended to Foundation headquarters in New York that the request for financial support be given serious consideration. "The work proposed", Florey wrote in the application letter, "in addition to its theoretical importance, may have practical value for therapeutic purposes." His application was approved, with the Rockefeller Foundation allocating US$5,000 (£1,250) per annum for five years.

To me, the key facts here are that Florey received the grant, that Miller initiated and supported it, and perhaps that Florey was already looking on to clinical applications. We could do something much more concise like:

Florey applied to the Rockefeller Foundation for funding, on the encouragement of Henry M. "Dusty" Miller Jr from its Natural Sciences Division. Florey's application, which predicted that penicillin research could have therapeutic as well as theoretical value, was supported by a recommendation from Miller to the foundation's headquarters in New York. The foundation approved the request and allocated the research US$5,000 (£1,250) per annum for five years.

Not in itself a major issue, but given the length of the article, it's a good idea to cut for readability and approachability where we can do so without making major sacrifices. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Y trimmed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:09, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Trials

Florey's team at Oxford showed that Penicillium extract: to be clear, this extract is not the same as penicillin?
Fleming called the mould extract "penicillin", but Florey used "penicillin" to mean the active ingredient (which Fleming had not isolated). Later St. Mary's would attempt to use this to confuse people.
and noted that it was not an enzyme that broke the bacteria down, nor an antiseptic that killed them; rather, it interfered with the process of cell division.: this could do with a slight rephrase for clarity: it's a bit of a garden-path sentence where we initially read "it was not..." to mean "it was not [the case that...]" ("it's not the size of the dog in the fight..."), but it's later revealed to refer to penicillin. Suggest "they determined that penicillin was not, as previously thought (?), an enzyme that broke the bacteria down, nor an antiseptic that killed them; rather, it interfered with the process of cell division."
Y Tweaked the wording along the lines suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What's a sulphonamide: for us non-chemists, why is it being mentioned here?
Y Added a quick explanation. Linked to a better article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
show that penicillin is active in vivo against at least three of the organisms inhibited in vitro: either both or neither of in vivo and in vitro should be italicised.
Y (Has a look.) Florey does not italicise; seems to have been the work of a wiki-gnome. De-italicised. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is it worth explaining briefly what The Lancet is: in particular, that it's an extremely prestigious journal, which might make the muted reaction to the publication a bit surprising?
Y Added that it was "a prestigious medical journal", with supporting citation. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The publication of their results attracted little attention; Florey would spend much of the next two years attempting to convince people of its significance.: presumably, Florey was interested in the significance of the results rather than of their publication: if so, their significance.
Y Tweaked wording. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Columbia team presented the results of their penicillin treatment of four patients: we've met two (Alston and Aronson) already, but where did the other two come from?
Y See Hobby, pp. 72-73. Two patients with endocarditis. One is just called "Mr Conant" and the other is unnamed, altough the treatment and dosages received is described in detail. Added a bit. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We wouldn't normally mention a journalist's name (rather than the newspaper's) in connection with a report, but is William Laurence a big enough deal to make an exception?
Hell yes! The most famous science reporter of the era, perhaps of all time. I encountered him on the Manhattan Project articles. He was present at the Trinity nuclear test for which he wrote the cover stories and flew on the Nagasaki mission as an observer. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
who had had a small sore at the corner of his mouth, which then spread: suggest clarifying the chronology here: by the time we're talking about, he no longer had a small sore. Maybe something like "who had a severe facial infection involving streptococci and staphylococci which had developed from a small sore at the corner of his mouth"? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 08:32, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
100-millimetre (4 in): presumably, the measurement was originally given as 4in? If so, I'd give that measurement in the main text, then convert in brackets, to indicate that 100mm is the rounded figure. Likewise for other cases where the source gives an imperial measurement.
As noted above, the MOS says otherwise. See consensus with an RfC. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, happy that this is solved as above per
MOS:METRIC UndercoverClassicist (talk) 14:42, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Who was Sir Percival Hartley? Another Florey point here: which one?
Y Added a bit about him. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One reader was Fleming, who paid them a visit on 2 September 1940. Florey and Chain gave him a tour of the production, extraction and testing laboratories, but he made no comment and did not even congratulate them on the work they had done: clearer, I think, if we use Florey and Chain's names where we currently have them, and then they later on. Suggest deleting even as a sort of weasel word (it makes a moral judgement that he should have congratulated them, which isn't a verifiable statement). UndercoverClassicist (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I see why Mary Ethel Florey isn't referred to as Florey, but using her first name only is odd and has the unfortunate consequence of applying less formality to her vs. her male colleagues. Suggest "Mary Florey" vs. "Howard Florey", which can then be "Mary" and "Howard" if mentioned again within the same passage. Ethel was placed in charge, but while Florey... is unclear.
Y Changed to Howard Florey here, but elsewhere "Florey" is understood to mean Howard, and it would be awkward to keep repeating his first name. Note that Margaret Jennings was also Lady Florey. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure about 'is understood': you might understand that, but I don't think we can rely on all of our readers making the same assumption. One option would be to footnote it: otherwise, I'd suggest using "Howard Florey" or "Ethel Florey" (or indeed "Lady Florey") the first time that one of them is mentioned in a given passage or chunk of text; as long as they're the only Florey in the area, they can then be "Florey" until the next long break. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I guess we could delete all mentions of Ethel Florey, but I didn't really want to do that. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That wouldn't be at all necessary: we just need to name her and her husband in a way that's clear and
close enough to neutral with regards to gender. There's plenty of ways to do it, but I don't see that the suggestion I made above would be particularly difficult to implement. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:00, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Y The first mention of Florey in each section is "Howard Florey", except in the sections where Ethel Florey is mentioned. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Deep submergence for industrial production

in a confined laboratory: I'm not totally clear on this; does confined really mean small?
Y Not really. Deleted "confined". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
was losing a battle against: metaphorical language like this should be avoided in encyclopaedic writing.
Y Re-written. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What was wrong with John Fulton, or was Bumstead simply his family doctor?
Y Treating his for an infection. Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
about 3 grams of penicillin was recovered: were recovered, I think.
Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think shallow pan method would usually be hyphenated: it's the pan that's shallow, not the method, so shallow-pan method.
Y Hyphenated. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Peoria: I was about to link this, but is it Arizona or Illinois?
The article already says and links Peoria, Illonois. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On 17 August 2021, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker signed a bill designating it as the official State Microbe of Illinois: this is a great fact, but it breaks the chronology: I'd suggest putting it in a footnote, along with the "Mouldy Mary" anecdote.
Y Moved to a footnote. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
deep submergence production plant: again, I'd hyphenate deep-submergence, as it's not the production or the plant that were deep.
Y Hypenated. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
fourteen 130,000 litres (34,000 US gal) tanks.: I appreciate that this is a consequence of the template, but it's ungrammatical: they were 130,000-litre tanks. This seems to have worked fine in the Australia section below, oddly enough. As before, though, I'd use the imperial measurement first, since that's what they were actually called at the time.
Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Did any of the Pfizer scientists, other than Kane, go on to be notable enough for a (red)link?
I did check them all, and did not think so. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is very much a non-specialist question: given that all strains contain mutations relative to each other, what makes this one a "mutant strain": is that a term that would be used in scholarly sources? Similarly, I think it should be 300 milligrams of penicillin per litre. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
These mutant strains were deliberately created by mutating the mould with ultraviolet and X-rays. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The company invested $2.98 million of its own money: sounds a bit like giving them a pat on the back (it wasn't exactly an act of charity): I'd suggest deleting "of its own money".
I think it is an important point. It was not an act of charity, but a high risk gamble on an unproven technique. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose my issue is that "the company invested $2.98 million" has the same meaning, is less verbose and seems less congratulatory to me. I suppose the alternative would be that they borrowed the money, but I'd be surprised if we can categorically rule out that all of this came from their pre-existing funds. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 14:44, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Another sixteen plants were built by the private sector for $22.6 million (equivalent to $ million in ), although $14.5 million (equivalent to $ million in ) was approved for accelerated depreciation under which the cost could be written off in five years instead of the usual twelve to fifteen: this could be clearer, particularly as to what is meant by the cost could be written off.
In accounting, you write down the cost of an asset over its useful life. Often this is tax-deductable. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes; would "for tax purposes" be useful to include at some point? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 14:45, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Another editor will delete it as a tautology. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not a problem for GA. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Chester Keefer from the MRC was responsible for administering the equitable distribution of penicillin for civilian use.: it sounds like there's a story here: do we know how he made these decisions?
A form of triage under which he assessed which patients were most likeley to benefit. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's a small thing here, but the current phrasing seems like it's starting in the middle of that story: a little more context would be helpful (a more intuitive phrasing would be something like "[Whatever body/person] placed Chester Keefer, an academic at the Boston University School of Medicine, in charge of establishing a triage system to ensure the equitable distribution of the drug." UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Added a bit more about this. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reads well. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mass Production

Robert D. Coghill: a matter of taste, but just Coghill would be fine here. Equally, if we're going to reintroduce him, remind the reader of who he is.
Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is it semisynthetic or semi-synthetic? The article isn't consistent, and I don't think we ever explained exactly what this word means.
Y Linked. Gone with semisynthesic, per our article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Information about penicillin research in Germany was gathered by the Manhattan Project's Alsos Mission: I'd suggest some context here: what were nuclear scientists doing spying on German mycologists? In particular, I'd clarify what the Alsos Mission was; I initially parsed it as someone's name.
Y Although the Alsos Mission was primarily concerned with nuclear technology, it had a broader mission to gather information on German scientific war research. Added in a footnote. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The section on German-occupied Europe only has a minority of the content from the time of German occupation. Suggest a section on "Continental Europe", into which Germany could be subsectioned if felt necessary.
Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
the first traded were seeded on 25 March: I'm not sure what this means.
Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The WPB placed penicillin under allocation: I'm not sure what this means.
Y tried to make this clearer. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Chemical analysis

Y Changed to "suggested". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The chemical structure of penicillin was first proposed by Abraham in 1942.: is proposed here a slightly
specialist
term: presumably, Abraham made the first formal suggestion as to what penicillin's chemical structure was?
We could introduce Hodgkin. Does that sentence really need four citations?
Y removed two. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why is nucleus in (scare) quotes?
Y deleted scare quotes. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Methicillin-resistant forms of S. aureus likely already existed at the time: it's probably worth explaining why this was important (I've made a link to MRSA).
Y Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Patents

, The Evening News contrasted its generous support of the Oxford team's work with that of the parsimonious MRC: does its refer to the Evening News or the Rockefeller Foundation?
Y Completely obvious, but added the repetition, which makes the article sound poorly written. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
£0.5 million: more usual to say £500,000.
Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nobel prize

Who was Rudolph Peters?
Added that he was a biochemist but its not really relevant. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Bill Bynum is presented almost as a contemporary observer: was he?
Not according to the article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
an avalanche of nominations: vague and metaphorical: suggest reworking.
Y Re-worded. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)* half to Fleming and one-quarter each to Florey and Chain: do Nobel prizes work like that? I know they can be joint, but didn't know they could be unevenly joint.[reply]

Yes. It is fairly common. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
When The New York Times announced that "Fleming and Two Co-Workers" had won the prize, Fulton demanded – and received – a correction in an editorial the next day: triple-cited: any need for all three?
Yes. One is the secondary source, the other points to the two newspaper articles. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fleming revelled in the publicity, but Florey did not: suggest rephrasing: it's metaphorical (so not great for readers coming from different backgrounds, contexts, levels of English...) and also unclear: "revelled in" covers a multitude of sins, and "did not" could go anywhere from "didn't throw a party" to "hated it".
Y The source says: "Fleming loved the attention and the adulation" (Mason, p. 276) Changed to "enjoyed"
send them packing: on a similar note, would rephrase unless a quote.
Not changed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For the GA review, the article needs to comply with
MOS:IDIOM. From there: Clichés and idioms are generally to be avoided in favor of direct, literal expressions. Lion's share is often misunderstood; instead use a term such as all, most, two-thirds, or whatever matches the context. … Instead of writing that someone took the plunge, state their action matter-of-factly.. I can't see that either of these are compatible with that instruction, or the rationale behind it of making our language clear and universal. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
And I'm not seeing a suggestion of a better, non-idiomatic phrase. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't prescribing a particular solution, but one needs to be found. You could try "send them away" for "send them packing", "Fleming enjoyed the publicity, but Florey resented it", or any formulation that accurately conveys what the sources say. The important thing is that it meets
MOS:WTW, and so the GA criteria. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:45, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Y I thought of that but "send them away" is also an idiom. Replaced with a quote from Bickel. "It was a shock to Florey when the news corp arrived at the front door of the Sir William Dunn School. He immediately escaped through the back with instructions to his secretary, Mrs Tuner, to 'send them packing'... a deep abhorrence of the media stayed with Florey for the rest of his life" (Bickel, p. 173) Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:52, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, making it a quote works well: we can get away with a lot more outside Wikipedia's voice. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Introduce Nanna Svartz
No need. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree: it's always good practice to introduce and contextualise new characters, but in this particular instance, we've explained who Liljestrand was and given a good reason why he would be scrutinising the work, so we ought to treat Svartz in the same way. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Y Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the article on the Karolinska Institute, I now realise that the practice before 1977 was for the Nobel in Medicine to be awarded by the decision of (at least some of) the professors there. Is that worth including?
Journalists could hardly be blamed for preferring being fibbed to by Fleming to being fobbed off by Florey,: magnificently British, but I think it needs a total rework for this context: the could hardly be blamed is editorialising.
Not editorialising. Not changed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In which case, do we have a source that says that the journalists could hardly be blamed? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 14:47, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, in the cited source. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:09, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see it, I'm afraid: the source suggests that journalists liked Fleming because he gave them a good story, but I don't see any direct contrast made with Florey or any moral judgement that the journalists should be held blameless (which is itself
we can't take any more than the most trivial inferential steps from the sources without falling foul of Wikipedia's OR standards. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Y Rewritten. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What did Erlanger and Gasser win the Nobel for?
For their work on nerve fibres. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Worth a mention, perhaps?
Y Not really, but added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's a nice reminder that penicillin wasn't the only thing going on in the biological world at the time. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The "In 1943..." paragraph has a massive bundle-cite at the end: it would be clearer to make explicit which sentence comes from which source. Are all five citations really indispensible?
Yes. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There's nothing wrong with it per se, but it's a little odd to so scrupulously maintain
WP:TSI throughout the article and then relax that standard for exactly one paragraph. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Y I have moved the refs about to make it clearer what came from where, although they overlap. What puzzles me is nominations for Florey and Fleming in 1946. Maybe they arrived after the closing date in 1945. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Who was Sir Henry Dale?
Already introduced above. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ah yes - but we called him Sir Henry Hallett Dale there. Suggest consistency as to what we use as his "full name".
Y Changed to "Dale". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Development of penicillin derivatives

(bioavailability, spectrum, stability, tolerance): a bit technical, I think, for most readers.
Y Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It was more advantageous than the original penicillin as it offered a broader spectrum of activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria: worth reminding the reader that the original penicillin only works on Gram+?
Y Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The penicillins related β-lactams: this doesn't sound grammatical, though I'm not sure how to fix it.
Y re-worded. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Antibiotic preferences differed from country to country: is this strictly past, or does it continue? If the latter, suggest present tense.
It was true 15 years ago. Whether it will still be true in ten years' time is likely, but uncertain. Kept the article in the past tense. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Can we be more specific on the timeframe implied by e.g. amoxicillin was widely used in the UK, then?
Y added a bit. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:46, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The first major development was ampicillin in 1961. It was produced by Beecham Research Laboratories in London. It was more advantageous: awkward phrasing with the two "it was...", the second of which is perhaps slightly ambiguous (or at least a long way from its antecedent). Suggest "The first major development was ampicillin, discovered in 1961 and produced by Beecham Research Laboratories in London. It was more advantageous...".
Y Re-worded. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:46, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Antibiotic resistance

completely negating its antibacterial effect: simply negating?
Y Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
it is non-dialysable through 'Cellophane' membranes: I'd lc cellophane, as we do for hoover and so on.
Y De-capitalised. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
At the time, only poisons required a doctor's prescription, and this represented a real possibility: grammatically a little ambiguous even if the meaning is pretty clear: this could be clarified as "the widespread unsupervised use of the drug by members of the public" or similar.
Y Re-worded. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
colds and flus: cold and flu, I think. Clarify to erroneously believed in that sentence, perhaps?
Y Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
By 1942, some strains of Staphylococcus aureus had developed a strong resistance to penicillin and many strains were resistant to penicillin by the 1960s: could rework so that to penicillin is only needed once.
Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
slipshod administrative practices, such as taking babies from their mothers to large hospital nurseries: clarify for a non-specialist what was wrong with this.
Y Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Since then other strains and many other species of bacteria have now developed resistance: we don't need both since then and now; always best, if we can, to give a concrete date ("by 2023...", "by the twenty-first century", or similar).
Y trimmed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Notes and references

To avoid the size of the article blowing out, I have added archive URLs only when they are required. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:29, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The main concern with article size is readable prose; I'd definitely suggest an archive link to anything that isn't a PDF, as the chance of a webpage's text changing under your feet is reasonably high, and it's helpful for the bibliography to show precisely what the source looked like when cited. Not really here or there for GA, though. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:13, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

Is it worth something in the lead about the importance of the Second World War to the development of penicillin, and of penicillin to the Allied war effort?
Y Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:09, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A little pedantry, perhaps, but the sailors, marines and airmen who were saved by the drug might balk at the word "soldiers". Suggest "service personnel" or simply "saving thousands of lives". UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Early scientific evidence

Foreign-language text should be placed into lang templates so that screen readers can render it properly, and to allow the Wiki software to properly categorise the article.
Sure. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Leaving this one up so that I remember to do a read-through for it later on. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:05, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Early evidence

The second quotation translated by Florey should be footnoted in the same way as the first, with the original source if possible.

Y Footnoted. Could not locate the original. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
He published a dissertation in 1897, but it was ignored by the Institut Pasteur: the relevance of the Institut Pasteur could do with some explanation: why would he have expected to be noticed by them, and why should he have cared?

Y Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Isolation

Chain determined that penicillin was stable only with a pH of between 5 and 8, but the process required one lower than that: so a pH of 4, or between 4 and 7?
Below 5. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:20, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, I'd suggest Chain determined that penicillin was stable only with a pH of between 5 and 8, but the process required a pH below 4. That is ambiguous in this context. UndercoverClassicist (talk)
N Incorrect. The original is correct, and unambiguous. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:09, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, "below 5". I don't think it's unambiguous at all, though it's unlikely to be a game-changer for a GA review. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 08:21, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Trials

Why are Streptococcus and Staphylococcus capitalised and italicised but gonococcus and meningococcus are not? Streptococcus is decapitalised but italicised in the third paragraph.
Y I'm not sure. De-capitalised. Someone from
WP:MED may weigh in. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Leaving up in case they do, but I'm happy that this is resolved for the time being. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Deep submergence for industrial production

Anne Sheafe Miller, the wife of Yale University's athletics director, Ogden D. Miller: I'm uncomfortable about glossing women with reference to their husbands: is Ogden Miller really that notable (he doesn't have an article)? If not, I'd suggest cutting that bit: we haven't identified Albert Alexander by who his wife was, or Arthur Jones by his parents.
Yes, but the athletics director is the most important person at a US university. Today many earn salaries in excess of a million dolars. Miller doesn't have an article but he is notable. [1]. Contempory accounts of course refer to her as "Mrs Ogden Miller", so Anne Sheafe Miller is anachronistic. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I can't see that her marriage is notable in this context: did her husband or his status play any role in this story? If not, there's enough notability in what happens to her to explain what she's doing in the story, so would strongly counsel deleting. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it was! If she had not been married to an important person, she would not have been treated. Similar to Marlene Dietrich given penicillin in 1943. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is that in the source? After all, we've had plenty of rather ordinary patients treated elsewhere, particularly in the UK. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The article follows the sources, which never fail to mention it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not a hill that the GA standards want to die on. Moving on... UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:23, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
to produce mutant strain designated X-1612: presumably a mutant strain? Later, produced 300 what per ml?
Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
the less desirable penicillin K: I'm not sure we've had this introduced (or, more generally, the concept of penicillin [letter]). What made it less desirable?
The different penicillins behaved differently. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've commented on this when we get to the relevant section below: the idea behind the different strains and their letters is currently quite confusing given the ordering of the article. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Y Added a section link, although I really don't like them, and their use is widely discouraged. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to make it less obtrusive, a footnote's an option. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Y Changed to a footnote. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
deep fermentation techniques: it would be worth clarifying exactly what this means.
Y Added a bit. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I only see a ~~red~~link; I don't see anything that I can understand as an explanation of what that term means. Remember
MOS:NOFORCELINK: links are for things which the reader will find interesting and useful, but shouldn't entirely replace explanations of terms that aren't likely to be familiar. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Added an explanation. None of the sources thought it required explanation, so added another source. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Stopping again for now. My admiration continues: I've made a number of very small copyedits, so it's worth just keeping an eye on typos, punctuation, repeated/redundant words and so on, particularly given how colossal this article is. Its size is outside scope for a GA review: my personal thought would be that it's coherent and so happy enough at this length, but equally there would be nothing wrong with a split if a straightforward and logical line for that exists. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 08:32, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Split off the Discovery of penicillin into its own article, which it originally was. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mass production

Much of Germany's penicillin came from Czechoslovakia: clarify (if true) that we're talking about the period in which Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany.
Work was also conducted in secret in France: which France are we talking about here: that is, on which side of the war?
The penicillin was called "Hekiso" after its blue colour: non-Japanese-speakers will need this explained.
It is what the sources say. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Right, but that doesn't mean that it's understandable or an appropriate phrasing for this website. Do you know (or can you find out) what Hekiso means in Japanese? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 08:22, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Hekiso" is the Japanese word for "penicillin". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, but presumably it literally means something like "blue mould", otherwise the sentence we've written makes little sense. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The UK section reads a little bit like a laundry-list of companies and figures: it would be good to have this hashed out into a more coherent narrative.
The US production seems to be astronomically higher than that of other countries: the country-by-country approach makes it difficult to see the similarities and differences between them. I'd suggest a short introductory paragraph to the Mass Production section which gives some sort of overall narrative, before we dive into the individual countries.
Why did so many firms leave the penicillin market after the war?
The steep drop in price made it hard to compete. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Worth including in the text, I think. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. Provide me with a reliable source and I will add it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd assumed that you'd have read it somewhere before writing it here! It's not a major problem: it creates a lacuna in the narrative, but comprehensiveness isn't required for GA. Separately, there's a small problem with only twelve: we haven't actually stipulated how many firms (as opposed to plants: one firm can operate many plants) were manufacturing it before: only is defensible from
WP:WTW if it's self-evidently a massive drop, but we haven't shown that. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
I did read it somewhere, but cannot remember where. The switch to deep submergence was the key; this technique could produce penicillin far more cheaply, but involved a considerable capital outlay. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Outcome

This section seems like an oddity: I guess it's trying to explain what penicillin does, but it reads as a too-brief collection of what seems like fairly random information. I'd think about how to integrate that information into the rest of the article and get rid of this section.

Chemical analysis

I now understand the different designations of penicillin: suggest footnoting and linking the reader down to this section when the first "Penicillin X" crops up. However, it seems from this section that we only found out about these different forms in 1945, which seems to contradict what was earlier stated in the article.
groups that mask the reactivity of certain functional groups isn't really any clearer than protecting groups to a non-chemist.
Do you want the explanation deleted? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My preference would be to make it clearer, or make it into a footnote, which would give you more space to take the reader through it more slowly. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 14:46, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
first-generation-resistant penicillinases could do with an explanation. I know we briefly introduced penicillinases further up.
Yes, we did. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We haven't, however, introduced what a "first generation" is, and so the concept of a penicillinase being "first-generation-resistant" is opaque. It can be guessed at from context, but the writing and explanation could also be far clearer. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
in fact, all β-lactam antibiotics: was this discovered in 1957-9, or only later?
Yes. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A mathematician's answer! The current phrasing is ambiguous as to whether that fact was discovered at the same time as the discovery that 6-APA constituted the nucleus of penicillin; I'd suggest a rephrase to clarify one way or the other. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
now the Beechem Group: now is always liable to date; suggest instead giving the date when they changed their name.
Y Beacham merged with SmithKline in 1989, and then with Glaxo in 2000, so it is now GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Rewritten. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We now have the same with Ernst Brandl of Biochemie (now Sandoz); I might have missed that on first pass. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Y Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Patents

He sought the advice of Sir Henry Hallett Dale: is he Chain or Florey?
Florey. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Minor, but I think the use of all as a noun in arguing that penicillin should benefit all is a little dated these days, and Florey's objection isn't incompatible with there being a patent on penicillin. Suggest something like "should be produced for the good of all people rather than for commercial gain"? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
the British Patent Office (now the Intellectual Property Office).: I'm not sure the modern name is quite necessary, but if it is, see my comment on the Beechem Group above.
The controversy over patents led to the establishment of the UK National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) in June 1948.: what's the connection here?
Y added a bit. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still not seeing the point, I'm afraid. Was the idea to formalise and standardise what happened when medicines were discovered on the government's time, and what would happen with the resulting commercial opportunities?
It was to prevent the Americans from patenting the results of British research. The result was a major cultural change away from when scientists made their results freely available. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I think I'm beginning to see it here (so the NRDC would go and get the patents itself, making sure that a) they existed and b) the Americans didn't get there first? Would clarify in the text.

Nobel prize

he feared that this would create a demand for penicillin that he did not yet have to give: clarify this (obviously intended to be "the publicity", but grammatically closer to the fact that Florey disliked that publicity) and the second clause (again, that is awkward because it could, grammatically at least, have either a demand or penicillin as its antecedent). Suggest "he feared that this publicity would create more demand for penicillin than his short supplies could satisfy" or similar. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fleming and St. Mary's Hospital made little or no effort to correct: I'd clarify this if possible: did either Fleming or St. Mary's make any effort? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
but there was a larger issue: the story they wished to tell was the familiar one of the lone scientist and the serendipitous discovery.: again, I think the tone is a bit too breezy for Wikipedia.
N Not changed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not in itself a major problem, as long as sourced. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Development of penicillin derivatives

phenoxymethylpenicillin: what's that? This is the only use of the word in the article.

Y Penicillin V. Changed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
methicillin: I'm now a bit confused, as we had MRSA mentioned in 1959, but M only seems to have existed from 1961.
Cephalosporins were discovered in 1945, but first sold in 1964. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, but either methicillin-resistant strains of S. aureus existed in 1959, or they emerged subsequently to 1961; both can't be true. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Mathematician's answer: of course they can. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus emerged long before the introduction of methicillin into clinical practice. MRSA emerged in the mid-1940s. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:46, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, so against the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains that subsequently emerged: the word subsequently [to 1961 at the earliest] needs to be replaced with "had already" or similar. Unless they were effective against pre-1961 MRSA but not post-1961 MRSA? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Y Deleted "that subsequently emerged" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
However, the usefulness of the β-lactam ring was such that related antibiotics, including the mecillinams, the carbapenems and, most important, the cephalosporins, still retain it at the center of their structures: as a non-chemist, I'm confused as to how this fits with the sentence before, or indeed exactly what it means. Should center be centre per BrE?
Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do I have it right that antipseudomonal penicillins don't have the β-lactam ring? I'd make that explicit if so. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Piperacillin is an example of antipseudomonal penicillin with a β-lactam ring. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In which case, we need something to make clearer what the word however is doing here: make explicit the contrast between antipseudomonal penicillins and the the β-lactam ring, or rephrase if there isn't really one. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Y Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Antibiotic resistance

The widespread belief that antibiotics could cure all ailments: is this backed up by the source? It certainly isn't backed up by the previous sentence: ailments exist which are neither colds nor flu, and I doubt anyone was taking penicillin for a headache or a broken arm.
It's been done. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see it, I'm afraid. I see lots on how patients wanted to use antibiotics to cure inappropriate ailments, but nothing suggesting that they thought they could cure everything. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It reduced the status of doctors to providers of pills: what does this concretely (
verifiably
) mean?
In the source. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It might be, but the source operates to different rules to this site: we need everything we say to be verifiable, which doesn't just mean that someone has written it somewhere (we can't claim that Carlsberg is probably the best lager in the world, even if we can cite it). We could have something like "it led to patients insisting on being prescribed antibiotics against their doctors' advice", if that's justifiable. Alternatively, it strikes me that this sentence could be removed and the clarity of the paragraph would be improved, quite separately from this issue. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Further to this: I don't see that phrase in the source; the closest thing is a complaint from doctors about what they perceived as the decreasing amount of deference paid to them by their patients. That's very different to what we've presented here. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
cf pp. 146-147. And we're not supposed to use the same phrases as the source; we're required to summarise in our own words. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
80,000 in US from bacterial complications; 28 per cent of those who contracted pneumonia died: I assume that pneumonia is (always?) a bacterial complication: is this so? If so, I'd make more explicit.
That is not correct. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
many of these were antibiotic-resistant strains implies that pneumonia is something that has strains (in other words, is a bacterium). Some rephrasing of something for accuracy and clarity is needed here. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Pneumonia is a condition that can becaused by a bacterial infection. Just as a runny nose is a condition caused by a cold. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Gotcha. In which case, as there's no such thing as a strain of a runny nose, we need to rephrase so that we don't have any strains of pneumonia. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:23, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Use in agriculture

The reasons for this were still subject to debate in the twenty-first century: can we say anything about what has been suggested?
We could but it wouldn't be very informative. The source says "While debate continues as to the precise mechanisms by which antibiotics and antibacterials promote growth, the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment notes three possible modes of action: a metabolic effect, a nutrient-sparing effect, and a disease-control effect" Followed by a long list of studies. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like an easy enough addition if we can rephrase those three mechanisms in a slightly more layman-friendly way, but not a major issue for GA. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
improved feed-conversion efficiency: what's that to a non-farmer?
Y Most non-farmers are not very interested in farming. Linked to our article, which will tell them more about it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
After the Food and Drug Administration improved the use of penicillin as feed additives for poultry and livestock in 1951: should that be approved?
Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The standard form figures aren't usual in this kind of context (really, outside an astronomical one); I'd rephrase as e.g. 2,000,000. Why not convert tonnes into tons, though?
Y Changed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The largest user remained the poultry industry: we implied, but never actually said, that it was the largest to begin with.
Yes we did. We said it was the first. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We did, but then we started talking about "animal feed" rather than "chicken feed", so the reader had no reason to assume that most of those animals were chickens. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 08:25, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It was estimated in 1981 that banning their use in animal feed could cost American consumers up to $3.5 billion a year in increased food prices.: is that an estimate by the agricultural industry, I wonder? More generally, this statement might be better contextualised as a reason (among many?) why the government acted relatively slowly, in spite of the fairly foreseeable problem.
Y A study by the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology. Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
By the mid-1950s, there were reports in the United States that milk was not curdling to make cheese. The FDA found that the milk was contaminated with penicillin: clarify, for those not familiar with cheesemaking, that this process requires the action of bacteria, which the penicillin was killing.
Y Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
committee chaired by Lord Netherthorpe was established in the UK to inquire into the use of antibiotics in animal feed.: is this in 1963?
Y In 1960. Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The committee recommended that restrictions on the use of antibiotics in animals be relaxed: this seems, in the context of what preceded it, utterly insane. Is my chronology right that these recommendations follow the worsening situation where people are becoming allergic to milk and can't make cheese? The article makes it sound as if Netherthorpe viewed antibiotic resistance as a future possibility rather than a current reality.
Yes. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
the committee was recalled in 1965: what exactly does recalled mean in this context - sacked, or brought back into being?
It means that they were reassembled to reconsider the issue. Clarified. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
caused the deaths of: simply killed?
Y Sure. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In 1967, a multiresistant strain of E. coli caused the deaths of fifteen children in the UK. The use of antibiotics in animals for nontherapeutic use was banned in the UK in 1971. Many other European countries soon followed: it feels as though the story has been quite compressed here. Not a major problem for GA. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is a long story here, but even for FA I would not expend the section. Instead I would create a subarticle for it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
When Sweden acceded to the European Union (EU) in 1995, there had been a total ban on antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) in place there for ten years. This would be superseded by more relaxed EU rules unless Sweden could demonstrate scientific evidence in favour of a ban. Two Swedish and two Danish took up the fight. The odds seemed against them but this coincided with the United Kingdom BSE outbreak, which resulted in intense political pressure. In December 1996, the European Parliament's Standing Committee on Health and Welfare voted to ban the use of AGPs. The EU went further and recommended broad restrictions on the use of antibiotics: I think this bit needs another look: it moves very fast, gives the sense of missing out key details (it mentions that four people were involved, but doesn't identify them), and the language is a little sensationalising at time ("took up the fight", "the odds seemed against them, but.."). UndercoverClassicist (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Y Added the names of the scientists. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Mostly checks out well. A few issues:

File:Penicillium rubens (Fleming's strain).png is uploaded as CC, but comes from a copyrighted publication. It's an open-access article but I'm not sure that's enough to reupload its images to Commons; I certainly can't see anything on the web page to indicate that it's CC licensed.
I can see it, but unfortunately it has a CC licence, so we cannot use it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:47, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
New image (File:Glass phial of British Standard penicillin, London, England, Wellcome L0059573.jpg) is fine. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 08:32, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~File:Penicillium rubens (type specimen).png: as File:Penicillium rubens (Fleming's strain).png, of which it's a derivative work.~~
Y Removed this, substituted File:P commune M35 9 d tribu.jpg
Checks out. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 08:32, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
File:Penicillin-flasks.jpg: this one worries me: it claims to be the work of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology Medical Illustration Service (of which I can find no further information), but also to be hitherto unpublished, and so there's no source provided or any means of verifying that claim. I'm not sure we can take an anonymous Commons user's word for it, unfortunately: is there any other way to verify the provenance of the image, or another similar one that would do the job?
Y Removed. Cannot find a similar one. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:47, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
All new images check out. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 08:32, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Other image points:

Some sections (especially "Mass Production" go a long way without an image: the usual going rate is about one per screen, and it might help to break up the wall of text.
~~Y Added some images. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:47, 10 July 2023 (UTC)~~[reply]
Suggest adding alt text for accessibility, especially to those using screen readers for visual impairments.
allowing the mould to breathe: this might be a confusing metaphor, since mould doesn't 'breathe' in the sense that we usually understand the term.
Y Re-worded, but it is in the sense that we usually use it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:47, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~The caption on File:A notebook page signed by Dorothy Fennell Alexander.jpg takes up almost as much space on my screen as the image itself. Can it be trimmed?~~
Y Trimmed caption. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:47, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Notes and references

One consequence of the referencing system is that journal citations don't have specific page numbers. There's a way to do this with the {{rp}} template, though I recognise that this would be a lot of work and not strictly needed for GA. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There's inconsistency as to whether titles use sentence case or title case, particularly for the titles of articles in journals.
Yes. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There's some inconsistency as to whether authors' initials are followed by a full stop.
Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Suggest consistency as to whether journal names are hyperlinked.
Not all have articles. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~Some journals have ISSNs, others don't. Some ISBNs are in ISBN-10, others in ISBN-13 (can be converted with this tool. Very much above the bar for GA, but good to be consistent if possible.~~
Y ISBN-13s are now used. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What's the system as to whether full citations are used versus SFN?
Don't understand the question. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As I think I understand it, printed books are given as "Smith 2023, p. 1" (SFN), but other types of sources (journals, websites and primary documents) are given in full in the footnote, even when cited multiple times. It's a slightly archaic division nowadays (especially as concerns journals): it makes the "References" section now oddly titled (since it doesn't contain most of the references used in the article) and seems less durable, as it invites some of the typos and other mistakes listed here. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 08:36, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The article citation style cannot be changed. (
MOS:RETAIN) I have written hundreds of articles and had to labour under many styles. This one is the best, because it allows for the maximum of automated checking. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Page numbers aren't strictly required, but it's good practice to be as precise and verifiable as possible.
All have page numbers. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Would encourage consistency as to whether it's Wainwright, Milton or Wainwright, M.
There seems to be an odd set of characters in the title of footnote 2.
Cannot see any. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 8 (Koch) is a primary source: being very technical, we can't have that as the only source for a medical claim per
WP:MEDRS
.
It isn't. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~Note 18 (Pouillard): needs a year.~~
Y Added
Note 22 (Bigger et al 1927): typo in title. As it's a direct quote, I think we really should include the precise page number.
Y Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 32 (Hess 2019): The Histories is a student journal: what makes it a reliable source? We don't normally allow undergraduate or MA dissertations under
WP:RS
.
Y Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 39 (and any others to which this applies): italicise scientific names of species (here "Fleming's penicillin producing strain is not Penicillium chrysogenum but P. rubens")
Notes 41 and 44 (Hare 1982) appear to be the same source.
Y merged. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 45: Thom can't himself be the source to show that Thom popularised one name over the other; that primary source can show that he used it, but we need an independent secondary one to credit him with winning the argument single-handedly. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:40, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Y Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 49 (Blackwells) isn't a brilliant source (it's a bookseller) and is multi-cited: can it be removed?
Y Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 52: Fleming 1929 can't be a reprint of Fleming 1979.
Correct. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 110 (General and Local Administration Of Penicillin): decapitalise of
Y Decapitalised. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 114: archive link is broken.
Y deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 132 (Bauze 1997): needs volume, issue number, pages (the latter not on the website but I suspect findable elsewhere?).
Y Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 133 (Tom Volk's Fungus of the Month for November 2003): what makes this a
reliable source
?
Y deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 135 (Mestrovic 2010): doesn't seem to be a particularly high-quality source, and is bundle-cited with two others. Remove?
Y Removed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Notes 179 and 180 are both to articles called "The Total Synthesis of Penicillin V". There seems to be something strange going on with the authors' names: are these really two different articles, by the same people, with the same title, two years apart?
Yes. It is often the case that a letter will be sent announcing something important, followed by the full article later. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Are KR Logan (note 183) and KR Henery-Logan (note 184) the same person?
Y Corrected typos. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 185: wonky italics in title.
Cannot see them. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 186 (and elsewhere if this applies): page ranges should be written in full (as they have been for other citations): so 189–192.
Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Notes 195 to 197 are primary sources (the patents themselves): could these be replaced by a secondary source, and perhaps linked out of the footnote if you think a reader might want to look directly at them?
Y Bundled. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The five citations (three of which are primary) 207-211 could be bundled into a single refn template to give more context as to what they are and reduce the clutter on the page.
Y Bundled. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 220 (James and Gurk-Turner 2001): the title of the journal is Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings
Y Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The link on note 223 (Sutherland and Rolinson 1970) points to the wrong article. Ditto the DOI and the PMC, though the PMID seems to be correct.
Looks okay to me. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 224 (Burch and Spurling 2018): hyphen to emdash in title.
Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 225 (Aberer and Macy 2017): title should be The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice (colon not full stop).
Y Correct. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Suggest the title "Bibliography" instead of references for the list of (printed) books.
N Not doing that. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
External link: give the date of the debate?
Y Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I hope you don't mind my intrusion! I looked through some sources and have few comments. Artem.G (talk) 07:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

source 2, Experiment-Resources.com - doesn't look necessary, and doesn't look reliable compared to books and peer-reviewed articles
Y Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:29, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
source 3, Australian National Herbarium, is fine, though this page says An excellent source of information about this topic is the chapter by Arpad Kalotas in Fungi of Australia, Volume 1B and virtually all the material in this section is taken from there. The book is here, and the chapter is "Aboriginal knowledge and use of fungi A.C.Kalotas". Another possible source is An Examination of the Medicinal Potential of Pittosporum phylliraeoides: Toxicity, Antibacterial and Antifungal Activities: Australian Aborigines used P. phylliraeoides as a medical plant to treat a variety of conditions. ... traditional Aboriginal use of P. phylliraeoides infusions to treat viral diseases including colds and coughs. ... P. phylliraeoides also had uses in the treatment of various cancers by Aborigines etc
If I was writing up the topic, but all it is supporting is the statement that Aboriginal Australians used fungi to treat infections. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:29, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
source 6 says "DOI inactive as of July 2023"
The document was downloaded from here. You can see the DOI is correct. Added the URL and lodged an error report. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:29, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
source 20 is a redirect to a login page, and looks unnecessary
Y Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:29, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
source 21 is a Festival page, why is it needed? sources 18 and 19 should be enough
Y deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:29, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
source 177, C&EN, is a redirect, and is unnecessary (there are 5 sources for this one sentence)
Y deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:29, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A year later, Moyer asked Coghill for permission to file another patent based on the use of phenylacetic acid that increased penicillin production by 66%, but as the principal researcher, Coghill refused. - unsourced
Y Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:29, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
and the last comment - lead image has this caption Example text, and that's unreadable to non-chemists.
Y Changed to "Fleming's mould". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:29, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like the article is not going to pass, so I guess the review can be closed now. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Up to you; there's a fairly short list of things that need to be done before it can, and a longer list of things that could be done to make it better, but I'm fully expecting this process to conclude with the necessary changes made and the article passed. One of those necessary things is on my part, which is the spot checks: I can't pass it without them, but I'm happy to simply stop the review at this stage if that's your preferred choice. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:57, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Spot checks

Ref numbers refer to this version.

Note 3: the source says that Parkinson documented the use of mould, which has become advocated in our article. It mentions "the benefit of moulds" in connection with his work but stops short of saying that he recommended that anyone else use them (plenty of historical accounts mention the benefits of trepanning without advising that you try it at home).
Y Changed to "documented". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:37, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 6: I don't see any support for he called Penicillium glaucum: the source simply gives this as the name, so our phrasing implies doubt that isn't supported by it.
Y Deleted "a species of mould he called" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:37, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 17: Y checks out.
Note 21: we have Fleming had no training in chemistry, so he left all the chemical work to Craddock; the source has Fleming toiled for half a year to gather all the necessary experimental data, and that most of the chemical experiments were done by his research assistant Craddock and his once scholar Frederick Ridley... Fleming ... once commented: "I am a bacteriologist, not a chemist.". That's really quite different on both key points.
Y Changed to "Fleming was a bacteriologist, not a chemist, chemistry, so he left most of the chemical work to Craddock." Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:37, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What's chemistry doing in the middle there? We could perhaps have ...considered himself a bacteriologist..., given that, by training, Fleming was a medical doctor, which is in many ways an applied chemist and not quite a bacteriologist. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 09:45, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Rubbish. Most know very little about chemistry. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:48, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 23: could I have the direct quote to support As he and Daniel Merlin Pryce, his former research scholar, examined the culture plates, they found one with an open lid and the culture contaminated with a blue-green mould. In the contaminated plate the bacteria around the mould did not grow, while those farther away grew normally, meaning that the mould killed the bacteria?
It happened that in 1928 I was engaged in a bacteriological research on staphylococci and when for examination purposes I had to remove the covers of my culture plates a mould spore drifted on to a plate. After a time it revealed itself by developing into a colony about half an inch across. It was no new thing for a bacteriologist to find that a mould had grown on a culture plate which had lain on the bench for a week, but the strange thing in this particular case was that the bacterial colonies in the neighbourhood of the mould appeared to be fading away. What had a week before been vigorous staphylococcus colonies were now faint shadows of their former selves. I might have merely discarded the contaminated culture plate as I had done contaminated plates before, but fortunately my previous research work on antiseptics and on naturally occurring antibacterial substances caused me to take special notice of the apparent antibacterial action of the mould.

Hare began this series of letters by doubting that the translucent colonies observed by Fleming and Pryce were in fact lysed. In his reply, Pryce emphasized that the colonies were both fully grown and lysed, and he suggested to Hare that there was no point in attempting a reconstruction of the famous plate until these facts were taken on board. In a subsequent letter Pryce returned to this point as follows: "Nobody believes that Penicillin lyses staphylococci and I do not for one moment believe that the lysis about the mould was due to Penicillin, but lysis of those colonies there most certainly was. Flem. and I looked at the plate and I thought to myself that the lysis was due to a change of pH, but what I actually said was 'that's how you discovered lysozyme'.

I'm not seeing anything for meaning that the mould killed the bacteria: the second quote seems to imply that at least Pryce believed that it wasn't the penicillin that killed the bacteria. If these direct quotations are the source, MOS:PRIMARY would prefer a secondary source to confirm them, at least for the interpretation of why what they observed happened. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 09:45, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rubbish. These are secondary sources. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:48, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 37: We have This story was regarded as a fact and was popularised in literature: the closest I can find in the source is the story obtained wide publicity, which doesn't indicate that it was accepted as a fact, or indeed specify where it was repeated.
Y It does: "he story obtained wide publicity following its repetition by Maurois in his biography". And people keep repeating it [2][3]. Deleted "This story was regarded as a fact and was popularised in literature".
Yes: obtained wide publicity is not the same as was accepted as fact (the JFK assassination conspiracies have obtained wide publicity). Similarly, following its repetition by Maurois in his biography says that it was repeated once in writing, and says nothing about where it was subsequently popularised: it could have been spread by word of mouth from people who read that book. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 09:45, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 39: Y checks out.
Note 47: Y checks out.
Notes 53 and 54: could I have the direct quote(s) here for The Oxford team's first task was to obtain a sample of penicillin mould. This turned out to be easy. Margaret Campbell-Renton, who had worked with Georges Dreyer, Florey's predecessor, revealed that Dreyer had been given a sample of the mould by Fleming in 1930 for his work on bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria. Dreyer had lost all interest in penicillin when he discovered that it was not a bacteriophage?
Hobby:
Strangely, penicillin had first been produced at the Sir William Dunn School in 1930 - five years before Florey moved to Oxford. George Dreyer, Florey's predecessor, had been interested in bacteriophages - viruses with specific affinity for bacteria that are found in association with essentially all groups of bacteria and blue-green algae. In 1929 he had seen Fleming's paper on penicillin and had obtained a reprint of the article and a culture of the mould. He soon showed that Fleming's Penicillium notatum was not a carrier of bacteriophage, but he continued to grow the mould and use it to obtain plaques of a standard size for quantitation of other bacteriophages. Miss Campbell-Renton, who was associated with Dreyer for many years, had continued this work after his death. Fleming's contaminant thus was cultured in the department at Oxford from 1930 on

Wilson:
The Sir William Dunn School of Pathology possessed examples of Fleming's strain of Penicillium notatum. This was a strange coincidence, because Chain certainly discovered Fleming's work by reading the literature and not by any knowledge of previous work at Oxford. But the fact that the mould was in their possession undoubtedly led them to choose penicillin as one of the starting points for their grand survey of microbial antagonism. The mould was in Oxford because Florey's predecessor, George Dreyer, had been working on bacteriophage at the time of Fleming's original observation and had wondered whether penicillin was an example of bacteriophage. Bacteriophage, now known to exist in many different strains and types, is a virus which infects and kills bacteria. As soon as Dreyer found out that penicillin was nothing like a bacteriophage he stopped studying it. There is a story about Chain in his first days at Oxford having bumped into a laboratory assistant carrying a tray of flasks and asking what was in the flasks. When he read Fleming's paper he remembered the incident in the corridor and went to the laboratory of Miss Margaret Campbell-Renton, who had been Dreyer's assistant, and got the mould from her.

Williams:
By a strange coincidence this was already available in the laboratory. Dreyer, Florey’s predecessor, had been interested in a class of bacteriolytic agents, known as bacteriophages, discovered by Frederick Twort in 1915. He thought that Fleming’s penicillin might be some kind of bacteriophage and in 1929 had obtained a culture of the mould; this had been maintained at Oxford ever since by Miss Campbell-Renton. According to Heatley, Vollum said that he had ‘played about’ with P. notatum and his culture may have been independently obtained. There was thus no occasion for any direct request to be made to Fleming, who consequently was not aware of renewed interest in his mould.

I'd remove this turned out to be easy: it's not directly supported by the sources (as I can see) and is definitely on the line for verifiability. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 09:45, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Rubbish. How much easier can it be than walking down the corridor? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:48, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 61: similar for It was not known why the mould produced penicillin, as the bacteria penicillin kills are no threat to the mould; it was conjectured that it was a byproduct of metabolic processes for other purposes
Why the mould produces penicillin at all is still obscure: the common pathogenic organisms— so deadly to man— are scarcely a threat to its existence in nature. The supposition is that it is no more than the casual end product of some metabolic process important for other reasons, much as some plants produce highly toxic substances, like strychnine and nicotine, which are not demonstrably useful to them.

Y That checks nicely.
Note 70: I don't see anything here to support but they were able to produce only small quantities, or for the date of 1941. They mention that they produced 450–500 Oxford units per mg, but that's a measure of efficiency, not absolute quantity.
Y Added missing reference. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:37, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Could I have the supporting material from the new reference for this phrase? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 09:45, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note 218: I really can't make this one check out on the "cure all ailments" front, and see my objections re. the status of doctors in the relevant section above. Could you provide the direct quotation, if I've missed it?
Y Been rewritten. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:37, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Good on "The misplaced faith in antibiotics had serious consequences."

I'm going to stop there for now: there's quite a bit in that first tranche that needs addressing, and we can then look at another batch once those are fixed or clarified. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Now much better, though still a few quibbles. I'll do another set in a bit from further down the article. Thank you for responding so promptly and so thoroughly to those. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 09:45, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Glaxo history sections

This material is not within the

scope of this page. Minute details about individual laboratories are not needed for an encyclopedic entry about the history of the over-arching broad topic of penicillin history. It is also a combination of uncited and poorly cited. We do not need a summary of a loosely related book halfway through the page. Just-a-can-of-beans (talk) 17:54, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply

]

I have just noticed that the single source cited for all of this is a book written by you, the person who edited this content into the page. That is original research and it is unacceptable. Just-a-can-of-beans (talk) 17:59, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

agree, and when I reverted the addition it was entirely uncited. Artem.G (talk) 18:00, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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