The discovery of penicillin in 1928 ushered in a new age in medicine. But it took a team of Oxford scientists four more years to develop it as the first antibiotic. At once the world was transformed – major bacterial scourges such as blood poisoning and pneumonia, scarlet fever and diphtheria, gonorrhea and syphilis were defeated as penicillin to foster not only a medical revolution but a sexual one as well. In The Mold In Dr. Florey’s Coat, Eric Lax tells the story behind the discovery and why it took so long to develop the drug. He reveals the reasons why credit for penicillin was misplaced, and why this astonishing achievement garnered a Nobel Prize but no financial rewards for Alexander Fleming or Howard Florey. Lax delves into the lives of the scientists who played significant roles in developing the most significant medical discovery of the twentieth century. This is the story of the men and women who collaborated, sometimes happily other times grudgingly, to develop something that proved revolutionary to modern medicine and to the pharmaceutical industry. The Mold In Dr. Florey’s Coat is the compelling story of the passage of medicine from one era to the next and of the eccentric individuals whose participation in this extraordinary accomplishment has, until now, remained largely unknown. This is the untold story of the discovery of the first wonder drug, the men who led the way, and how it changed the modern world.