Vaccine TV The Discovery of Antibiotics. Antibiotics represent our first great victory in treating disease. In London in 1928, Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming discoverd the first great healing antibiotic– by accident. He named it penicillin, from the name of the mold it came from, penicillium. In 1941, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a lab worker nicknamed "'Moldy Mary" discovered a tough, stable strain of penicillium. The government's Committee on Medical Research chose Pfizer pharmaceutical to devise methods of growing huge amounts of the resilient mold to produce the life-saving drug. Pfizer began to produce more than half the penicillin in the world, helping to win WWII. Soon penicillin became available to the general public. Penicillin and the antibiotics that followed have become known as "wonder drugs."