View source for Alexander Fleming

==Personal life==
[[File:St-Pauls-Cathedral London Plaque-for-Sir-Alexander-Fleming-01.jpg|thumb|Grave of Sir Alexander Fleming in the crypt of [[St Paul's Cathedral]], London|alt=]]
On 24 December 1915, Fleming married a trained nurse, Sarah Marion McElroy of [[Killala]], County Mayo, Ireland. Their only child, Robert Fleming (1924–2015), became a [[General practitioner|general medical practitioner]]. After his first wife's death in 1949, Fleming married [[Amalia Fleming|Amalia Koutsouri-Vourekas]], a [[Greek people|Greek]] colleague at St. Mary's, on 9 April 1953; she died in 1986.<ref>{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|access-date=9 May 2016|archive-date=24 January 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130124115814/http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Fleming came from a [[Presbyterian]] background, while his first wife Sarah was a (lapsed) Roman Catholic. It is said that he was not particularly religious, and their son Robert was later received into the [[Anglican church]], while still reportedly inheriting his two parents' fairly irreligious disposition.<ref>{{cite book|title=Penicillin Man: Alexander Fleming and the Antibiotic Revolution|date=September 2005|publisher=The History Press|isbn=0-7509-3153-1}}</ref>

When Fleming learned of Robert D. Coghill and Andrew J. Moyer patenting the method of penicillin production in the United States in 1944,<ref>{{Cite patent|title=Method for production of increased yields of penicillin|inventor1-last=Coghill|inventor1-first=Robert D.|inventor2-last=Moyer |inventor2-first=Andrew J.|inventor2-link=Andrew J. Moyer|pubdate= 15 July 1947
|fdate=1944-06-17|country=US|number=2423873}}</ref> he was furious, and commented:<blockquote>I found penicillin and have given it free for the benefit of humanity. Why should it become a profit-making monopoly of manufacturers in another country?<ref name=":0" /></blockquote>From 1921 until his death in 1955, Fleming owned a country home named "The Dhoon" in [[Barton Mills]], Suffolk.<ref name=":13" /><ref>[http://www.bartonmills.net/local-history/ BartonMills.net local history]. Retrieved 17 October 2016.</ref>