Editing Howard Florey (section)

===Clinical trials===
In addition to the increased production at the Dunn School, commercial production from a [[pilot plant]] established by [[Imperial Chemical Industries]] became available in January 1942, and Kembel, Bishop and Company delivered its first batch of {{convert|200|impgal|L}} on 11 September. Florey conducted a second series of clinical trials. Ethel was placed in charge, but while Florey was a consulting pathologist at Oxford hospitals and therefore entitled to use their wards and services, Ethel, to his annoyance, was accredited merely as his assistant. Doctors tended to refer patients to the trial who were in desperate circumstances rather than those who were the most suitable candidates for treatment, but when penicillin did succeed anyway, confidence in its efficacy rose.{{sfn|Macfarlane|1979|pp=342–346}}

Harry Lambert, a friend of Fleming's dying from a meningococcal infection, became the twelfth case on 5 August 1942. He survived, but someone at [[St Mary's Hospital, London|St. Mary's Hospital]] leaked the result to the press, resulting in an editorial in ''[[The Times]]'' on 27 August. Florey was appalled; this could only create a public demand for penicillin when all available supplies were needed for the clinical trials. On 25 September, Florey met with Sir Cecil McAlpine Weir, the Director-General of Equipment and Stores at the [[Ministry of Supply]], who promised overriding priority for the mass production of penicillin.{{sfn|Mason|2022|pp=273–276}}<ref>{{cite ODNB |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/36816 |title=Weir, Sir Cecil McAlpine (1890–1960) }}</ref> Ethel and Howard Florey published the results of clinical trials of 187 cases of treatment with penicillin in ''The Lancet'' on 27 March 1943.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=M.E. |last1=Florey |author-link=Mary Ethel Florey |title=General and Local Administration Of Penicillin |journal=[[The Lancet]] |issn=0140-6736 |volume=241 |issue=6239 |pages=387–397 |date=27 March 1943 |doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(00)41962-8}}</ref>