In the short term,during his tragically short life, Martin Henry Dawson and his tiny band did nothing more than pique the supporters of Modernity.
Annoyed them, but nothing else.
But over the longer term, Dawson's Pen "G" team were in the first ranks of those easing Modernity, 'The Father Of All Evils' , off the global stage and replacing it with our new world of Commensality.
Their natural penicillin triumph was the first in a long series of blows that replace the hitherto dominant chemical cartels with today's biotech giants.
(A mixed blessing, admitably, but still a turn away from Man as the Be-all of all Knowledge to a recognition that we have much to learn from Nature.)
In the long run, it was Dawson's HGT DNA that was the fatal blow, coming from the direction of Science rather than from post-Auschwitz morality, that finally did in (Social) Darwinism.
So, beyond saving the lives of a few World War II SBE patients and beyond finally kick-starting natural penicillin production worldwide during that war, Dawson's efforts had a far longer term, far wider, affect that is worth honoring...
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