Penicillium mold upends our notions of Science and Progress says 1952 medical editorial

Is there a stranger chapter than this in the
whole history of scientific progress?
Ten years ago, "mold" was a faintly repulsive fungoid growth which sometimes caused the spoilage of food products.
The very word "moldy” implies something “musty,
fusty, and stale.”
Today, the blue mold is recognized
as a synthetic chemist of the first order— a
friend and benefactor of the human race.

    — Editorial , American Journal of Public Health, March, 1952.

I just discovered this editorial in an old copy of a county medical society journal but it said then what I have always thought about the wartime penicillin drama....