[Fleming, Alexander.]--Penicillum Notatum

mounted on black paper in a culture plate under glass (50mm. diameter) sealed with red fabric tape
[with:] a photographic portrait of Fleming (170 x 195mm.), half length, seated in his laboratory, mounted, inscribed on the image ("To Russell Wilkinson with love Alexander Fleming")
[with:] autograph letter signed by Fleming, to Russell Wilkinson, thanking him for the cheque from an anonymous donor and explaining that the money will help fund developments in penicillin therapy, to "extend the use of penicillin to innumerable minor ailments", 2 pages, 8vo, Inoculation Dept., St Mary's Hospital, London, 2 September 1945; and five other letters (including two retained copies) relating to the donation, 31 August - 4 September 1945; also with later printed ephemera

A RARE RELIC OF ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT BREAKTHROUGHS IN MEDICAL HISTORY. This early sample of the penicillin mould was given to a key figure in the wartime development of antibiotics. Colonel Sir Russell Wilkinson (1888-1968) was a member of the World War II Penicillin Committee alongside Fleming, Florey, and others. He was Military Medical Advisor to the Ministry of Supply but he was also a very well-connected physician who counted several members of the royal family among his patients, which probably explains how he came to be the intermediary in the anonymous gift of £4000 towards investigations into methods to retard the excretion of penicillin from the body.

This sample was included in Penicillin 50, an exhibition held at the University of Oxford in 1991.