Bedpans of Note

Apropos the unusually distinguished history of the bedpan in my cupboard under the stairs, I went searching for more information on the scientists who, following up on Sir Alexander Fleming’s discovery of the antibiotic action of penicillin mould, managed to stabilize the bacteria sufficiently to begin commercial production of the first generation of life saving antibiotics. The range of images I found was fascinating; there’s even a library photo of one of the original bedpans used for growing the mould in quantity. You can see why I don’t keep it on the sideboard.

http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?W=4&F=0002&Step=37

This image is on the files of the Science and Society Picture Library. Their science and technology related holdings hold a fair number of black and white photos of the production of penicillin in wartime and post-war labs, giving a good sense of time and place. Some idea of the impact of penicillin on real lives comes over in an image on Wikipedia’s penicillin entry. American posters urge sufferers to seek treatment for gonorrhoea – now – this is 1944 - curable in just 4 hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin

Fleming, Florey and Chain all received the Nobel Prize for their work, but Dr. Heatley, donor of my treasured bedpan, received no formal public recognition until 1990, when he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Medicine from Oxford University,the first given to a non-medic in Oxford's 800-year history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Heatley

As you might expect, London’s National Portrait Gallery holds several portraits of Sir Alexander Fleming. The only other member of the team to appear in the collection is Sir Ernst Chain, in a lively and energetic portrait by Lotte Laserstein.

http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?search=ss&sText=Chain&LinkID=mp05144&rNo=2&role=sit