Stuart Craddock had sinusitis when Alexander Fleming tried penicillin injections without success.
Craddock was Fleming’s research scholar and developed a severe infection of the nasal antrum, the sinus cavity connected with the nose. Fleming began treating him on 9 January 1929 with injections of his early penicillin preparation, but the treatment produced no noticeable benefit.
The failure did not show that penicillin was useless. The infection was probably caused by Haemophilus influenzae, then commonly called the influenza bacillus, which Fleming had found was not susceptible to his penicillin. The crude preparation and the difficulty of delivering enough drug into the infected area also limited the attempt.
Craddock’s case is often confused with later successful treatments. Cecil George Paine achieved the first clearly documented clinical successes in 1930, treating eye infections. Penicillin’s dramatic wartime reputation came only after Oxford researchers developed better extraction, purification and production methods.