448 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1945 



employed in processing blood plasma, still holds in industrial practice, 

 with some modifications from plant to plant. 



CLINICAL TRIAL 



A minute quantity of partially purified penicillin was finally ob- 

 tained, and in England on February 12, 1941, the first human patient 

 was treated. The response was dramatic and extraordinary, even 

 beyond the optimistic hopes of the research team. However, just as 

 its full powers were in evidence, the supply of the drug became ex- 

 hausted ; the patient had a relapse and died. Additional supplies were 

 prepared, and by June half a dozen other patients had been treated, 

 even though the Oxford workers had considerable difficulty in finding 

 subjects. Those eventually turned over to the penicillin team were 

 generally moribund, the most difficult of all possible conditions, where 

 the attending physicians believed that the experimentation could not 

 hurt the patients for whom all hope had already been abandoned. 

 Every one responded, although twice at the peak of success the drug 

 supply again ran out and the patients died. 



AMERICAN INTEREST 



Faced by all kinds of operational difficulties, shortage of manpower, 

 lack of equipment, and a wide general apathy to their reports, the 

 English research workers remained undaunted. Under the auspices 

 of the Rockefeller Foundation, they came to America, and Florey and 

 Heatley presented their appeal for technical and industrial help to 

 the National Research Council in Washington early in July of 1941. 

 Through the summer months of that year Florey and his associate 

 worked under grants from these bodies and with the research and 

 production staffs of several enterprising American pharmaceutical 

 and chemical houses. They gained the cooperation of Coghill and his 

 co-workers of the United States Department of Agriculture Experi- 

 ment Station at Peoria, experts in the fermentation field. They were 

 able to develop new culture methods and to find ways of increasing 

 yields. Florey returned to England in September of 1941 to devote 

 his efforts to the improvement of the purification process. Heatley, 

 his fellow worker, remained in this country for a year and assisted in 

 the planning of the first small program of production. 



The results obtained in these early months^ experiments were even 

 more startling than Florey and Heatley had dared to predict or to 

 hope. American research workers under the direction of the Office 

 of Scientific Research and Development found that their observations 

 more than bore out the early promise of the drug. With renewed en- 

 thusiasm, larger-scale production of the drug was planned. 



