Chain, Chain, Chain

I am not big on chain letters, probably because of one I got when I was a boy that promised a gazillion postcards if I would just copy the letter and send it to ten people. This was in the days before Xerox, and before I learned to type, so the only way for me to make ten copies was to do it longhand, a long and arduous process for me. I don't think I ever completed the task, and it has put me off chain letters ever since, even though now all it takes is a point and click to forward one to everyone on the planet.

I got one today that contained this story about a tie between two famous people. It piqued my interest because it involved a bit of recent history I could check out.

Irish Luck

His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog.

There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.

The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman's sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved.

'I want to repay you,' said the nobleman. 'You saved my son's life.'

'No, I can't accept payment for what I did,' the Scottish farmer replied waving off the offer. At that moment, the farmer's own son came to the door of the family hovel.

'Is that your son?' the nobleman asked.

'Yes,' the farmer replied proudly.

'I'll make you a deal. Let me provide him with the level of education my own son will enjoy If the lad is anything like his father, he'll no doubt grow to be a man we both will be proud of.' And that he did.

Farmer Fleming's son attended the very best schools and in time, graduated from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin.

Years afterward, the same nobleman's son who was saved from the bog was stricken with pneumonia.

What saved his life this time? Penicillin.

The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill.

His son's name? Sir Winston Churchill.

Someone once said: What goes around comes around.

----*--------*--------*--------*--------*--------*--------*--------*----

It's a nice story, and the I certainly believe the lesson, but I wonder what little Lord Churchill was doing wandering around in the bog. Well, it was 100 years ago, and presumably parents weren't such nannies as they are today. On the other hand, in order to survive back then you couldn't be a ninnie and wander off into a bog.

While there are elements of truth to the story, the bit that ties the two families together is probably not true. Alexander Fleming did discover penicillin, and Lord Randolph Churchill was the father of Winston Churchill. Alexander Fleming went to medical school on an inheritance from a relative.

From the Wikipedia article on Alexander Fleming:

"The popular story^[9] of Winston Churchill's father's paying for Fleming's education after Fleming's father saved young Winston from death is false. According to the biography, Penicillin Man: Alexander Fleming and the Antibiotic Revolution by Kevin Brown, Alexander Fleming, in a letter^[10] to his friend and colleague Andre Gratia,^[11] described this as "a wondrous fable." Nor did he save Winston Churchill himself during World War II. Churchill was saved by Lord Moran, using sulphonamides, since he had no experience with penicillin, when Churchill fell ill in Carthage in Tunisia in 1943. The Daily Telegraph and the Morning Post on 21 December 1943 wrote that he had been saved by penicillin. He was saved by the new sulphonamide drug, Sulphapyridine, known at the time under the research code M&B 693, discovered and produced by May & Baker Ltd, Dagenham, Essex – a subsidiary of the French group Rhône-Poulenc. In a subsequent radio broadcast, Churchill referred to the new drug as "This admirable M&B."^[12]It is highly probable that the correct information about the sulphonamide did not reach the newspapers because, since this drug had been a discovery by the German laboratory Bayer and the UK was at war with Germany at the time, it was thought better to raise British morale by associating Churchill's cure with the British discovery, penicillin.^[13]"

And why was the story called Irish Luck anyway? It's about a Scottsman and an Englishman. Maybe because, for once, the Irish didn't get drug into it?

And we can't talk about chains without talking about Aretha:


Aretha Franklin - Chain Of Fools
There were several videos on YouTube, but the sound wasn't as clear as on this one. Hard choice to make, dancing and okay sound, or no video and good sound.

More chains: Chain 1 & Chain 2.

Update December 2016 replaced audio track from the defunct grooveshark with the YouTube video.
Update March 2017 replaced missing video.

Update March 2021 replaced missing video.