Sir Alexander Fleming - HERO - Short Question Answers

Lesson 13

Sir Alexander Fleming

Patrick Pringle

 

Q.1     What are antiseptics and what is the antiseptic method?

Ans:    The use of chemical to kill the germs is called antiseptic method. These chemicals are known as antiseptics.

 

Q.2     What was the chief defect of antiseptic method?

Ans:    The chemicals had toxic effect on leucocytes.

 

Q.3     What part is played by the white cells in the blood of a human body?

Ans:    White blood cells are natural defense system which fights against germs.

 

Q.4     Give an account of the early life of Fleming.

Ans:    Fleming was born on a farm in a poor family. He went to local school at the age of ten.

 

Q.5     Describe how Fleming discovered penicillin.

Ans:    He discovered penicillin by chance when he was growing germs on plates.

 

Q.6     In what respect is penicillin better than the chemical antiseptics?

Ans:    Unlike chemical antiseptics, it has toxic effect on germs and not in leucocytes.

 

Q.7     What do you know of the Oxford team?

Ans:    The Oxford team with the help of chemists and bacteriologists concentrated penicillin.

 

Q.8     How did the Oxford team make penicillin more effective?

Ans:    They made penicillin more effective by concentrating it.

 

Q.9     Write a note on penicillin as a wonder drug.

Ans:    Penicillin saved countless lives, especially healed war wounds.

 

Q.10   Was Fleming proud of his discovery?

Ans:    No, he says that it is nature, not I, which makes penicillin.

 

Q.11 Why couldn’t penicillin have been discovered in the research laboratories of America?

Ans:    Because they were so clean and dustless that no spore could get in.

 

Q.12 Fleming’s achievement paved the way for other discoveries in the medical field. What are they?

Ans:    After penicillin, antibiotics and streptomycin came forward as new discoveries.