About Alexander Fleming story:

It was too good to be true :( but is still nice:)

If you're thinking this story rings too good to be true, you are absolutely right. "Charming as it is," observes a Churchill Centre page devoted to alleged convergences between the lives of Winston churchill and Alexander Fleming, "it is certainly fiction."

Among the reasons set forth in support of that conclusion are:

•There is no record of Winston Churchill nearly drowning in a Scottish bog when he was young.

•There is no record of Lord Randolph Churchill paying for Alexander Fleming's education.

•Though it is true that Winston Churchill contracted pneumonia more than once during World War II and was treated with an antibiotic called sulfadiazine ("M&B"), he was never, according to available medical records, treated with penicillin.

That said, Sir Alexander Fleming was indeed the discoverer of penicillin, and Churchill did apparently consult with the brilliant physician and professor of medicine once in 1946 when he had a staph infection that proved resistant to the drug.

The Churchill Centre attributes the apocryphal tale, which has circulated in email form since 1999, to a 1950 book called "Worship Programs for Juniors" by Alice A. Bays and Elizabeth Jones Oakbery.


Source: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_winston_churchill.htm

Other links:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Did_Alexander_fleming's_father_save_winston_churchill
http://www.snopes.com/glurge/fleming.asp