One winter day in late 1940 English policeman Albert Alexander was pruning roses in his garden. A thorn scratched his face, a common accident when working with roses. But unluckily for Alexander bacteria spread from the cut into his bloodstream, where they multiplied and started a cascade of events that standard antibacterial treatments could not stop. Abscesses grew and grew on his face and in his lungs. In a last-ditch effort to save his life, doctors at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford gave him an experimental drug. It worked, and Alexander began making a swift recovery.
展开▼
