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Fleming and Churchill (Karsh, 1941)
The story that Alexander Fleming (or Alex and his father Hugh) twice saved Churchill’s life, charming as it may be, is certainly fiction. This persistent Churchill legend dates back to World War II. It is still found today on otherwise serious websites, despite abundant evidence against it. We are frequently asked about it, but explanations currently on the web are incomplete or inaccurate. Here for the record is the full story. Let us begin with the latest Internet version.
The Fleming Myth
His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog. There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.
The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman’s sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved. “I want to repay you,” said the nobleman. “You saved my son’s life.”
“No, I can’t accept payment for what I did,” the Scottish farmer replied, waving off the offer. At that moment, the farmer’s own son came to the door of the family hovel. “Is that your son?” the nobleman asked. “Yes,” the farmer replied proudly. “I’ll make you a deal. Let me provide him with the level of education my own son will enjoy and if the lad is anything like his father, he’ll no doubt grow to be a man we both will be proud of.” And that he did.
Farmer Fleming’s son attended the very best schools and in time, graduated from St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin.
Years afterward, the same nobleman’s son who was saved from the bog was stricken with pneumonia. What saved his life this time? Penicillin. The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill. His son’s name? Sir Winston Churchill.
Origins
For many years it was thought that the story originated in Worship Programs for Juniors, by Alice A. Bays and Elizabeth Jones Oakbery (1950). In a chapter entitled “The Power of Kindness,” Churchill is saved from drowning in a Scottish lake by Alexander Fleming himself. A few years later Churchill telephones Alex to say that his parents, in gratitude, will sponsor Alex’s medical school education. Alex graduates with honors and in 1928 discovers that certain bacteria cannot grow in certain vegetable molds. In 1943 when Churchill becomes ill, Fleming, through penicillin, saves his life again.
In 2009 Mr. Ken Hirsch trumped this story with a Google Book Search. This traced it back to “Dr. Lifesaver,” by Arthur Keeney, in the December 1944 issue of Coronet. Fastidiously, Mr. Hirsch then identified the author. Arthur Gladstone Keeney (1892-1955) was a Florida and Washington D.C. newsman who served during World War II in the Office of War Information. “Since Keeney’s story was published only a year after Churchill was stricken with pneumonia,” Mr. Hirsch wrote, “I think it may be the first appearance of the myth.”
Impossibilities
Churchill’s official biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert, first noticed a flaw in the story: the ages of Churchill and Alexander Fleming. The latter was seven years younger than Churchill. Would he have been plowing a field at, say, age 7, when Churchill was 14? Hugh Fleming (1816-1888) was certainly able to save a drowning Churchill up to about age 14 (WSC was born in 1874). But there is no record of Churchill nearly drowning in Scotland at that or any other age. Nor, concluded Sir Martin, is there record of Lord Randolph paying for Alexander’s education.
Another fundamental problem involves Churchill’s treatment in 1943. Dr. John Mather, an expert on WSC’s medical history, writes: “Churchill was treated for a very serious strain of pneumonia not with penicillin but with ‘M&B,’ a short name for a sulfadiazine produced by May and Baker Pharmaceuticals. Since the M&B was successful, it was probably a bacterial rather than a viral infection.” Sir Martin added: “The diaries of Lord Moran [Churchill’s doctor], while mentioning M&B, say nothing about penicillin, or the need to fly it out to Churchill in the Near East.”
M&B was much appreciated by the prime minister, wrote Kay Halle in The Irrepressible Churchill. The patient “took delight in referring to his doctors, Lord Moran and Dr. Bedford, as M&B.” He soon found that the most agreeable way of taking the drug was with whisky or brandy, commenting: “Dear nurse, pray remember that man cannot live by M&B alone.”
“But there is no evidence,” Dr. Mather continues, “that he received penicillin for any of his wartime pneumonias. He did have infections in later life, and I suspect he was given penicillin or some other antibiotic by then available, such as ampicillin. And in 1946, Churchill did consult with Sir Alexander Fleming about a staphylococcal infection which had apparently resisted penicillin.”
Alistair Cooke…
…led with this story in his 15 August 2003 “Letter from America,” and I was the Churchillian he mentioned. We had then tracked the myth only as far back as 1949. Alas he died six months later, before we knew of the 1944 appearance. He was a lovely man, and truly irreplaceable. See “Alistair Cooke: An Introduction and an Appreciation.” —RML
The last sentence is interesting.
Good point! Resisted penicillin in 1946?
Good to know myth and whatever. And staph bacteria is resistant to penicillin. Love both Winston and Al.
In the story it is Fleming’s father plowing the fields, not the 7 year old Alexander as you suggest in “Impossibilities.”
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Our article represents both variants of the story. -Editors
Interesting to see the development of famous “true” stories. There is usually a nugget of truth that has been embroidered through the years.
I just encountered this story in an elementary Turkish textbook! It appeared in a form almost word-for-word identical to this one (although in Turkish translation). I wondered if any element of it could be true and my search led here. Thank you for confirming my suspicions!
the story it is Fleming’s father plowing the fields, not the 7 year old Alexander as you suggest in “Impossibilities.”
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Our article represents both variants of the story. -Editors
Obviously the 7-year-old Alexander very likely would be accompanying and helping his father in his work not precisely ploughing the field himself. There are always nitpicking people ready to find fault. The story itself is charming and has a wonderful moral. Maybe its truth is of less importance than its message.
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True enough. “At times of crisis, myths have their historical importance.” WSC, 1933 -Eds.
Thank you ASTA, I agree totally. The story is charming and has a wonderful moral. Its truth is of less importance than its message.
Fleming may have discovered Penicillin but it could not be used in its original form. It was many years later that
an Australian, Howard Florey from South Australia unlocked penicillin and began the process of turning
It into an antibiotic treatment. It was used in 1945 in far North Queensland Australia to save my sister’s life.
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Thanks for this. Penicillin had come into use by the 1940s and was theoretically available, but there is no evidence it was used to treat Churchill in 1943. —Eds.
Penicillin is an antibiotic, all antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections. I’m not sure about the remark, “…so it must have been bacterial infection rather than viral.” Some of the myth busting makes not a lot of sense.
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Dr. Mather did not describe what penicillin is used for; he stated what Churchill was treated with. Mather found no evidence that Churchill’s doctor used penicillin. He used “M&B,” a sulfadiazine. Dr. Mather wrote: “Since the M&B was successful, it was probably a bacterial rather than a viral infection.” The Library of Chemical Safety describes sulfadiazine as an antibacterial agent. Makes sense to us. —Eds.
Interesting anyway to note that Sir Winston Churchill and Sir Alexander Fleming were contemporaries. That was my greatest interest in puncturing this tale. Thanks for helping to set the record straight.
I stumbled on here while researching Churchill myths. In the version that was given to me, it was a gardener who saves Churchill. I am more surprised that nowadays the myths can still be spread. It took less than fve seconds to find this website from an internet search and it was one of many in the results. Still, as some have mentioned, there is some importance in a good moral.
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We are glad you found us so quickly, anyway. -Eds
Too bad you felt obliged to ruin a perfectly lovely story that demonstrates the power a good deed has to multiply into so much good. Churchill and Fleming both saved alot of lives. I noticed a couple flaws in your story., so you could be wrong too. i choose to believe the altruistic account.
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Churchill did say (about the fable of King Alfred and the burnt cakes at a fraught time in English histry): “At times of crisis, myths have their historical importance.” But this wasn’t a time of crisis, and we were asked, so could only reply with the truth, as did Sir Martin Gilbert years before. Any corrections are most welcome. —RML
Nice research.
I was born in Spartanburg SC and my step-grandfather was Arthur Gladstone Keeney. aka “Sarge.” When I knew him he was working for the Times Union in Jacksonville FL. I had no idea that he was the author of the story linking Churchill and Fleming, until my Father told after Sarge died. I’m 82 now and I still enjoy the story of good deeds traveling full circle written by my step-grandfather. We need some stories today about Americans helping each other and coming together for the good of our country.
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Thanks so much for adding to our knowledge of this long-runnning story. —Editors
To be fair, the original story doesn’t seem to mention Sir Winston Churchill. Lord Randolph had a younger son, Jack, born in February 1880. Sir Alexander Fleming was born in August 1881, so that makes them just 18 months apart. Also, what’s the difference between Sulfadiazine and Sulfapyridine? Because it was Sulfapyridine that was known as M&B 693, used to treat WSC’s Pneumonia in in February 1943 and August/September 1944. In the 1930s Fleming temporarily prioritized his work on Prontosil over Penicillin, and the tweaking of the formula of Prontosil led to the development of M&B by May & Baker Pharmaceuticals in 1938. Consequently, there may be a grain of truth to the story after all.
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The original story, which we quoted, does mention Winston, not Jack, as the boy saved from drowning, and there is no record of Jack nearly drowning either. The original story wrongly claimed that years later Penicillin saved WSC’s life, though you are right that M&B is owed in part to Fleming. -Eds.
I have been told there is a lot of romanticism in the story I picked up from Facebook last week. There was nothing romantic about penicillin saving my arm (if not my life) when I was treated for osteomyilitis at the Chelmsford & Essex General Hospital in a period quite before 1943. The surgeon would have removed my right arm were it not for my Mother’s protestations. My family were in the dairy farm trade, a one handed boy (whom I may well have become) would not do too well with milking a cow, was my Mother’s argument. It is always the case that the good stories of life can get played with in one way or another. I cannot imagine where my life would have taken me if I had lost my arm. What I do know is that the Dr Fleming discovery and my mother’s protestations allowed me to have a right hand that is still with me. I am 87+ and so happy that I am here to tell the story ….