Question 1

True or false: Florey was knighted in 1944 for his contributions to medicine.

Accepted Answer

True. He was knighted by King George VI, becoming Sir Howard Florey, largely for his penicillin work.

Question 2

True or false: Florey was born in Australia and studied at the University of Adelaide.

Accepted Answer

True. He was born in Adelaide, South Australia, and earned his medical degree there before moving to Oxford.

Question 3

True or false: Florey’s work on penicillin was kept secret from the Nazis during World War II.

Accepted Answer

True. The British government classified penicillin research to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.

Question 4

True or false: Howard Florey won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of penicillin.

Accepted Answer

False. Florey shared the Nobel Prize for developing penicillin into a usable drug, but Alexander Fleming discovered it.

Question 5

True or false: Florey and his team first tested penicillin on a human patient in 1941.

Accepted Answer

True. The first human trial was on Albert Alexander, a policeman with a severe infection, and it showed dramatic improvement.

Question 6

True or false: Florey’s team used bedpans to grow penicillin mold because of wartime shortages.

Accepted Answer

False. They used ceramic vessels and later industrial fermenters, not bedpans—though the story is a common myth.

Question 7

True or false: Florey’s wife, Ethel, was a Nobel Prize-winning scientist in her own right.

Accepted Answer

False. Ethel Florey was a physician who helped with penicillin trials but never won a Nobel Prize.

Question 8

True or false: Florey deliberately infected himself with penicillin to prove it was safe for humans.

Accepted Answer

False. He and his team tested penicillin on mice and then on humans, but he didn’t self-infect—that was a myth.

Howard Florey Trivia Questions