THE LIFE OF SIR ALEXANDER FLEMING

Undertaken at the request of Lady Fleming, Maurois has written this second biography of the steadfast scientist and while it is difficult to find anything dramatic in this quiet man and quiet life over and above the tremendous significance of his discovery of penicillin for mankind, it is probable that the Maurois name will in itself lend it added interest. Scotch born on a remote farm, first schooled on the moors, Fleming went up to London to study at the university and under a great man, Wright, began his work on bacterial infections and the means of fighting them which was to be the prefiguration of the research he pursued all his life. A taciturn, temperate man with a matter of fact mind and an excellent memory, Fleming worked through the years in his laboratory where mould- the happy accident- produced the bactericidal, non-toxic agent which a team of scientists later substantiated and helped to commercialize. (Maurois does not undervalue as did Ludovici in the earlier biography- University of Indiana- the part played by Florey.) The long, happy marriage to Sareen; the fame of his discovery and its recognition when he was knighted and later awarded the Nobel Prize; the death of Sareen- and the last few years with his second wife who was also a research scientist, all form an equable portrait of a tranquil, dedicated life. The scientific aspects of his work are by no means scanted.