The penicillin shot heard around the world : how New York rescued NATURAL penicillin from the British and gave it to all of us

"The penicillin shot heard around the world" (Washington Heights , October 16th 1940) changed our entire world , for the better , forever.

But it almost didn't happened.

If Dr Dawson had been content (as most of the world's doctors were) to wait for the wartime British (led by Fleming and Florey) to totally synthesize (patentable) penicillin, the world would still be waiting for the first mass produced antibiotic these 75 years later.

Thank God the other Manhattan Project rescued natural penicillin from the British.

Because New York got natural penicillin into mass production well before WWII was over, when it was most needed , and then turned that Mother Nature-produced technology into the cornerstone of our entire antibiotic defences against death from microbes.

Move over Concord ( or is it Lexington ?!) ...