In 1928, a Scottish scientist named Alexander Fleming was researching a kind of bacteria called Staphylococcus. He conducted experiments with the bacteria in dishes. Fleming was brilliant, but he was messy and absent he left his laboratory to go on vacation, instead of cleaning up, left in When he the bacteria the dishes. When he returned, he noticed that mold had grown in the dishes while he was gone. He could have just thrown the away. Fortunately, instead, looked at them under a microscope. Fleming found that dishes of bacteria.He the area around the mold free that bacteria must have been dissolved by the mold. These dirty dishes led to the discovery penicillin, the first antibiotic. Today, this life-saving drug is used around the world. Each year there are 80 million prescriptions written for penicillin in the US. alone