Editing Alexander Fleming (section)

==Early life and education==
Born on 6 August 1881 at Lochfield farm near [[Darvel]], in [[Ayrshire]], Scotland, Alexander Fleming was the third of four children of farmer Hugh Fleming and Grace Stirling Morton, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. Hugh Fleming had four surviving children from his first marriage. He was 59 at the time of his second marriage to Grace, and died when Alexander was seven.<ref name="Fleming bio"/>

Fleming went to [[Loudoun]] Moor School and Darvel School, and earned a two-year scholarship to [[Kilmarnock Academy]] before moving to London, where he attended the [[Royal Polytechnic Institution]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Brown|first1=Kevin|title=Penicillin man : Alexander Fleming and the antibiotic revolution|date=2004|publisher=Sutton|location=Stroud|isbn=978-0-7509-3152-6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PP06AwAAQBAJ&q=Alexander+Fleming++Loudoun+Moor&pg=PT27|access-date=11 September 2015}}</ref> After working in a shipping office for four years, the twenty-year-old Alexander Fleming inherited some money from an uncle, John Fleming. His elder brother, Tom, was already a physician and suggested to him that he should follow the same career, and so in 1903, the younger Alexander enrolled at [[St Mary's Hospital Medical School]] in [[Paddington]] (now part of [[Imperial College London]]); he qualified with an [[MBBS]] degree from the school with distinction in 1906.<ref name="Fleming bio"/>

Fleming, who was a [[private (rank)|private]] in the [[London Scottish Regiment]] of the [[Volunteer Force]] from 1900<ref name="lesprixnobel" /> to 1914,<ref name=Kelly>{{cite book|title=Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes|date=1955|publisher=Kelly's|page=802}}</ref> had been a member of the rifle club at the medical school. The captain of the club, wishing to retain Fleming in the team, suggested that he join the research department at St Mary's, where he became assistant bacteriologist to Sir [[Almroth Wright]], a pioneer in [[vaccine]] therapy and immunology. In 1908, he gained a [[BSc]] degree with gold medal in [[bacteriology]], and became a lecturer at St Mary's until 1914.

Commissioned lieutenant in 1914 and promoted captain in 1917,<ref name="Kelly" /> Fleming served throughout [[World War I]] in the [[Royal Army Medical Corps]], and was [[Mentioned in Dispatches]]. He and many of his colleagues worked in battlefield hospitals at the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] in France.

In 1918 he returned to [[St Mary's Hospital, London|St Mary's Hospital]], where he was elected Professor of Bacteriology of the [[University of London]] in 1928. In 1951 he was elected the Rector of the [[University of Edinburgh]] for a term of three years.<ref name="Fleming bio" />