Art recently got this Forwarded message and passed it on to me to enjoy. It sounded a bit too good to be true. I looked it up on Snopes and found that indeed it's not true. It's a myth.
I then checked Wikipedia for Fleming and found further information on just how untrue it was.
You know what else is funny? He wasn't Irish. Alexander Fleming was Scottish."Irish Luck - Remember to send it back!
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. 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.
Someone once said: What goes around comes around."
I know I'm picky. I really do like to check these Forwarded emails and let people know if it's fake. I've been told I should "lighten up." However, I guess I don't like the idea of misinformation being sown and grown as fact.
"...Alexander Fleming did not leave the farm to rush off to medical school to become the doctor he had supposedly always longed to be. In fact, young Alec (as he was then known) departed for London when he was 14, where his older brother Tom had studied medicine and opened a practice. Alec attended the Polytechnic School in Regent Street; after graduating, he entered the business world at the urging of his brother, worked as a clerk for a shipping firm for a few years, then joined a Scottish regiment when the Boer War broke out. It was not until after all of this that Alec decided to try his hand at medical school, and even then it was the encouragement of his older brother that was the deciding factor, not a lifelong yearning on Alec’s part to become a doctor. Additionally, Alec’s medical school education was financed with a £250 inheritance from a recently-deceased uncle, not an endowment from a grateful Randolph Churchill.
Nor is the other end of this tale true. Winston Churchill did come down with a sore throat and a high fever while in Tunis (on the way home from his December 1943 meeting with Franklin Roosevelt and Josef Stalin in Tehran), and the diagnosis of the medical team called in from Cairo by his personal physician (Charles Wilson, later Lord Moran) was pneumonia. According to Wilson’s biography, Churchill was treated with sulphonamide (an antimicrobial, but one unrelated to penicillin) and digitalis (for his heart) and sent to bed to rest. By the time a specialist, Professor John Scadding, was flown in from London, Churchill was already well on his way to recovery. In short, Alexander Fleming was neither present nor consulted when Churchill was diagnosed with pneumonia, nor was penicillin used to treat the British prime minister...
According to the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge, Churchill publicly denied the Fleming story in 1946."
Ah well, it was a nice story.
ReplyDeleteoh Alexander Fleming is truly a live-safer! I can't thank him enough for his ultimate invention, penicillin, really.
ReplyDeleteDarn it, it WAS a nice story--would've been so cool if it was real! But Kay, I smiled when I read you were told to lighten up. When I belonged to Facebook, every time someone posted something ridiculous (or repeated an urban myth I'd heard 10 years before) I always checked it out on Snopes, commented back what I found and got stony silence in return! For all the 'fake news' trump has been crowing about these last 4 years, he and his people sure send enough of it!
ReplyDeleteOkay, getting off MY soapbox now. Hope you have a great day :^)
I hold everything I read on Facebook skeptically. More false information is found on social media then anywhere.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post, Kay. These days we need to question everything and check sources. It's easy to believe feel good stories but you are so right to dig deeper.
ReplyDeleteThere was a time I would fact check and share the information with the story teller. Instead of being applauded for my work, I lost friends. People do not want to know when they are wrong.
ReplyDeleteYou and I are from the same page. I detest forwarding on rubbish that isn't true and often refer to snopes to link to the truth so I can send it right back to the sender. I read the book "Lies My Teacher Told Me" many years ago and it made a profound impact on my life. So I was over the moon when my oldest daughter came back from the first day of high school with her two history books, a traditional text book and "Lies My Teacher Told Me." There is hope for us yet.
ReplyDeleteI refer to Snopes on a regular basis.
ReplyDeleteI am getting a lot better at falling for these, thanks to Snopes too. Thanks for the book recommendation.
ReplyDeletekeep it up too many lies and deceits going on...
ReplyDeleteMy son ALWAYS checks on what I send him. No fun at all.
ReplyDeleteIt was a lovely story, too bad it was all hot air. I always fact check such stories. I finally got my BIL to quit sending them to me.
ReplyDeleteI am the same and people don't generally like me for it. Some grudgingly say thank you for my fact checks, others claim that it's an inspiring story and there's no harm in passing it along. I very, very rarely share anything or if I do, I've looked on fact check sites.
ReplyDeleteI like your stance. I have no need for these sticky sweet false stories at all.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your detective work, Kay! Now I must check out that book from the library. Or maybe I should wait for it's next edition; surely that will document the lies we've heard for the last 4 years! Every time I send my MPH/Veterinarian son an article, he can pick it apart as to why it's not a valid research item. I think I 've stopped forwarding stuff to him. Maybe he should world for Snopes too.
ReplyDeleteSunny in Kansas, Linda
I really liked the story and wish it had been true, but the true story is even more compelling. Thanks for enlightening me, and giving me a book I'm sure I'll enjoy reading. :-)
ReplyDeleteI appreciate fact checkers. There is way too much false stuff being passed around.
ReplyDeleteI love snopes and use it often.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I donate to them, automatically, every month.
DeleteWe just donated to Wikipedia. We should be good for several years now. :-)
DeleteProud of your work to check facts. It amazes me that on FB folks will complain that they don’t want their facts checked. Guess they rather tell lies.
ReplyDelete