A Locketful of Mold

To dedicate the first building of their new Medical Research Foundation, Oklahomans wanted a big name. They picked Sir Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin, and sat back to wait for an answer to their invitation through diplomatic channels. After ten days, General Manager Hugh Payne got tired of waiting, picked up his telephone and called Fleming in London; it took four minutes (and cost $8) to get Sir Alexander's acceptance.

Last week, with the temperature at 96DEG, the white-thatched Scot stood on a shaded platform in Oklahoma City, before 2,500 foundation supporters baking in the sun. Toward the foundation's goal of $3,000,000, almost $2,400,000 had been subscribed by 7,000 citizens. No donation exceeded $26,000 (given by a Shawnee couple in memory of their son); one was only 35-c-.

As he assured his audience that "the work done here may prove a thousand times more valuable to humanity than all the oil in Oklahoma," Fleming could hear the thudding accompaniment of a pumping well on nearby state land. Researcher Fleming had a word for the foundation's governors. It was up to them, he said, "to create the free atmosphere which will allow genius full play . . . Much in the future of humanity depends on the freedom of the researcher to pursue his own line of thought. Fundamental research thrives on free enterprise, and wilts and withers under too many controls."

As an inspiration to researchers who will begin work at the foundation next year, Fleming left with his hosts a glass locket, the size of a silver dollar, containing what looked like a pressed blossom. It was part of the original mold from which he extracted penicillin 21 years ago. Then Fleming set out for Rochester, Minn., and other research centers to do some personal research: he wants to know what details other workers have found out about the way penicillin works in the bloodstream. He also wants to learn more about the newer antibiotics: streptomycin, neomycin and aureomycin.

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