Natural penicillin the Strawberry Roan : there ain't no chemist here all alive that can stay with that mold when it makes that... high dive"

Chemists versus the fungal Strawberry Roan

To the Big Scientists of the Modern Age , natural penicillin from the penicillium mold was like an old moth-eaten cayuse , an old strawberry roan , a has been and a never was .

They saw it as a living being easily broken at the chemical wheel - requiring only a little heat and pressure to make it reveal all of its secrets.

Then the chemists could patent improved analogues of natural penicillin and thus corner the financial market on this precious lifesaver.

But as Montana Slim (Wilf Carter) might have sung it - "There ain't no chemist here all alive that can stay with that mold when it makes that... high dive."

Eighty seven years after chemists first set to work to break the penicillium mold , it still rides the range free and unpatented.

"A true micro bucking bronco that's never been rid, though there's many a chemist that claims that he did...."