Hello friends, welcome to episode 5 of our series on Prohibition from Hatchets to Huts.

Okay, so in 1928, the Scottish microbiologist Alexander Fleming returned from vacation

to his messy lab, where he found a moldy petri dish sitting on a shelf.

And in it, he had been growing a bacteria called Staffalakakis-Orius.

You can see that around the mold, the staff bacteria had died and it was his aha moment.

He knew he was on to something.

Penicillin was hailed as a miracle drug, an antibiotic that could treat a variety of

maladies like throat infections, meningitis, and many other bacterial infections. It was quite

literally a lifesaver. It cured where previous miracle drugs, including alcohol and cocaine,

had failed. And yet, despite this world-changing discovery, even Fleming, the inventor of

Penicillin himself famously said, Paticellin cures, but wine makes people happy.

I'm Sharon McMahon and here's where it gets interesting.

In December 1931, when prohibition had been an effect for 11 years,

member of British Parliament, Sir Winston Churchill, was on a lecture tour through the United

States. While he was near City, Churchill looked the wrong way when crossing a street.

How many was English after all, and was hit by a car zipping along Fifth Avenue at around 35

miles an hour? Churchill sustained a number of cuts, bruises, broken bones, and a sprained from

the accident. Not to mention, like it's just shocking, it's shocking to be hit by a car,

it's shocking to see a car accident. What you should know is that Churchill was a daily drinker.

We're talking whiskey with breakfast, champagne for lunch, scotchette tea time, and a steady

stream of cognac between dinner and bet. The additional need to numb pain from his accident made

Churchill's travels through pro-abition America, especially tricky. Buying alcohol in America was

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