Lord Lister and Sir Alexander Fleming

Lord Lister and Sir Alexander Fleming (1944)
by Zachary Cope

This poem is devoted to Sir Alexander Fleming and Sir Joseph Lister for their revolutionary discoveries on medical fields. It was first recited at the party for the occasion of Fleming being knighted, at St. Marry's Hospital by Zachary Cope, a good friend of Fleming's, in late July 1944.

1939217Lord Lister and Sir Alexander Fleming1944Zachary Cope

Lord Lister and Sir Alexander Fleming

The septic microbes, not so long ago
Were to the surgeon a most bitter foe;
They got into the wound, which, thus inflamed,
Oft killed the patient or might leaved him maimed.

"Twas Lister first showed us the simple way
To keep the microbes out, and thus to stay
The dreaded sepsis of but yesterday.

Yet there remained a battle still to win
How to destroy the germs that had got in

Twas Fleming showed the way that gap to fill in
By finding that great wonder - penicillin
Which kills the germs, and has this extra charm
It scarcely ever does the patient harm.

Thank God for what these two great men achieved
For all the sick they have from death reprieved
Or of their ailments painlessly relieved.

This work is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, which allows free use, distribution, and creation of derivatives, so long as the license is unchanged and clearly noted, and the original author is attributed.

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