FH115 Final.qxd - Winston Churchill

“KEEPING THE MEMORY GREEN AND THE RECORD ACCURATE”
LEADING CHURCHILL MYTHS
The fable that Sir Alexander Fleming saved Churchill
from drowning as a boy and from pneumonia many
years later by his discovery of penicillin had quite a run on
the Internet a year or so ago, and the question still comes
up occasionally. Charming as it is, it is certainly fictitious.
The story goes at least as far back as Worship Programs
for Juniors, by Alice A. Bays and Elizabeth Jones Oakbery,
published ca. 1950 by an American religious house, in a
chapter entitled “The Power of Kindness.” This is an odd
source for an original myth, and we suspect the tale goes
back before that.
According to Bays and Oakbery, Churchill is saved
from drowning in a Scottish lake by a farm boy named
Alex, who grows up wanting to become a doctor. (Other
versions say WSC is saved by Alex’s father.) Churchill telephones
the Flemings in Scotland to say that his parents, in
gratitude, will sponsor Alex’s otherwise unaffordable medical
school education. Alex graduates with honours and in
1928 discovers that certain bacteria cannot grow in certain
vegetable molds. In 1943, when Churchill becomes ill in
the Near East, Alex’s discovery, penicillin, is flown out to effect
his cure. Thus once again Alexander Fleming saves the
life of Winston Churchill.
The first part of the story is clearly imaginary. Official
biographer Sir Martin Gilbert notes that the ages of
Churchill and Fleming (or Fleming’s father) do not support
the various accounts circulated; Alexander Fleming was
seven years younger than Churchill. If he was plowing a
field at say age 13, Churchill would have been 20. There is
no record of Churchill nearly drowning in Scotland at that
or any other age, or of Lord Randolph paying for Alexander
Fleming’s education. Sir Martin also notes that Lord
Moran’s diaries say nothing about penicillin, or the need to
fly it out to Churchill in the Near East.
Dr. John Mather, who has researched Churchill’s medical
history in great detail, punctures the 1943 part of the
story: “Churchill was treated for this very serious strain of
pneumonia not with penicillin but with ‘M&B,’ a short
name for sulfadiazine produced by May and Baker Pharmaceutical.
Since he was so ill, it was probably a bacterial
rather than a viral infection, and the M&B was successful.”
Kay Halle, in her famous quote book Irrepressible
Churchill (Cleveland: World 1966) comments (196) that
Churchill “delighted in referring to his doctors, Lord Moran
and Dr. Bedford, as ‘M&B.’ Then, when Churchill found
that the most agreeable way of taking the drug was with
______________________________________________________
This article first appeared in Finest Hour 102, Spring 1999.
whisky or brandy, he commented to his nurse: ‘Dear nurse,
pray remember that man cannot live by M and B alone.’”
But there is no evidence, Dr. Mather continues, “in the
record that he received penicillin for any of his wartime
pneumonias. He did have infections in later life, and I suspect
he was given penicillin or some other antibiotic that
would have by then become available, such as ampicillin.
“Churchill did consult with Fleming on 27 June 1946
about a staphylococcal infection which had apparently resisted
penicillin. See Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord
Moran (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966), 335.” ,
AMPERSAND
A compendium of facts eventually to
appear as a reader’s guide.
POUND AND DOLLAR VALUES
Today’s values:
AND INFLATION, 1874-2002 &£1 in: Exch. Rate $1 £1 in: Exch.Rate $1
1874 £43 4.86 $209 1950 £19 2.80 $53
1900 £61 4.86 $296 1960 £14 2.80 $39
1914 £53 4.86$258 1965 £12 2.80 $34
1920 £24 3.66 $88 1970 £9 2.40 $22
1930 £48 4.80 $230 1980 £2.5 2.33 $5.80
1940 £39 4.03 $157 1990 £1.4 1.78 $2.50
1945 £27 4.00 $108 2002 £1.0 1.50 $1.50
This chart represents the buying power (to the nearest £
or $) of one pound sterling in today’s pounds and dollars
since Churchill’s birth. (“Exch. Rate” = dollar exchange rate.)
In the 19th century, with both countries on the gold
standard, exchange rates varied little from the typical $4.86 to
£1, although there was a blip in the pound’s value around
1900. When Britain left the gold standard during WW1,
great fluctuations occurred and in 1920 the pound had sunk
to $3.66. Churchill returned Britain to the gold standard in
the late 1920s and the rate rose to $4.80, where it stayed in
the 1930s, even after Britain left the gold standard in 1931.
But devaluations reduced sterling’s value to $4.03 in 1940,
$2.80 in September 1949, and $2.40 in November 1967.
Floating exchange rates after the U.S. left the gold standard in
1971 saw the pound sink to as low as £1 to $1 in 1985. Since
that low it has hovered around $1.50, its July 2002 rate.
Devaluations aside, inflation has vastly lowered the buying
power of the pound and the dollar. See also these websites:
www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/current/howmuch.html
and http://www.eh.net/hmit/exchangerates/ —EDITOR ,
FINEST HOUR 115 / 46