Not A Fuzzy Green Jersey?

It's not often that I get to write about moldy fruit in this space, but I'm taking advantage of that opportunity today because it may be the only time I ever get to write about it. Normally, finding mold on fruit in a container or near other fruit would mean tossing out the mold-infected fruit, but one of medicine's greatest discoveries happened due to moldy cantaloupe. While the original discovery was made in London, England, one SPHL city played a major role in producing one of the planet's best antibacterial compounds ever! What was it? Let's find out!

In 1928, Scottish physician Alexander Fleming demonstrated the antibacterial properties of penicillin at St. Mary's Hospital in London. The experiment saw the penicillin mould spores kill off a bacterial culture containing Staphylococcus aureus. This was a rather big discovery in medicine as penicillin appeared to have all sorts of antiseptic properties, but isolating the specific molecular compound was incredibly difficult that not many in the medicine field considered it a historic discovery. Even Fleming had his doubts!

There were several successful treatments of various infections that saw penicillin kill off the bacterial infections in patients throughout the 1930s and early 1940s that gave the medical community some hope that penicillin could be produced in large enough and pure enough quantities to treat more people with smaller dosages. In one case, half the total supply produced was used on one patient, so it's clear that the medical community needed to find a way to mass-produce the medicine.

Australian scientist Howard Florey and researcher Norman Heatley could not persuade the British government to mass-produce the medicine, so they left for the US where they met with the the US government. They were directed to the USDA Northern Regional Research Laboratory in Peoria, Illinois where reesearch and large-scale could be done. As scientists worked to find a strain of penicillin that could be easily produced in mass quantities, the major breakthrough came when scientists discovered a strain of Penicillium fungi on a moldy cantaloupe that far more lethal to bacteria.

This newly-discovered strain had a stronger yield and could be rapidly cultured, and Peoria, Illinois officialy jumped into the business of mass-producing penicillin. Pfizer scientist Jasper H. Kane suggested using a deep-tank fermentation method for producing large quantities of pharmaceutical-grade penicillin, and the new procedure was put into place. By June 1945, over 646 billion units per year were being produced with Alexander Fleming, Howard Florey, and researcher Ernst Chain sharing the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery and development of penicillin.

So why is HBIC becoming Science Blog In Canada, you ask? Well, the SPHL's Peoria Rivermen are going to do a rebrand on March 9, and it has everything to do with Peoria's involvement in the penicillin story!

On that night, the Rivermen will be hosting the Pensacola Ice Flyers in the back-half of a two-game series, and they'll be wearing the jerseys you see to the right as they become the Peoria Penicillin! As per the release about the jersey, "[t]he main logo on the front is a penicillin bottle holding a hockey stick about to shoot a 'puck' that looks like a mold spore, in homage to Penicillin's crucial role in fighting bacterial infections worldwide," and the state outline of Illinois is in behind the anthropomorphic penicillin bottle. Frankly, that's a pretty solid cartoon rendering of penicillin for a logo.

Sticking with the details in the release, "[t]he right shoulder patch features the 'moldy cantaloupe' floating on the Illinois River with the Peoria skyline in the background. The words 'Peoria, Illinois 1st to mass produce Penicillin' is inscribed around the logo." This patch is very straightforward when it comes to Peoria's role in penicillin production, and I love the cantaloupe rendering. I'm not sure who is responsible for it, but that's just good artwork!

Still on the release, "[t]he left shoulder logo features a mortar and pestle, commonly used in pharmaceutical compounding, in the shape of the President's Cup" which is just an intelligent combination of two unrelated things. Well done on this shoulder patch, Rivermen!

Obviously, these jerseys may look different on the ice once we see them in action, but I honestly think these are pretty ingenious in the rebranding that the Rivermen will undertake on March 9. From the fun logos showing the history of Peoria's role in one of medicine's best discoveries to the actual history of the city's involvement and the team embracing it, this is one rebranding I can get behind. And the team will have merchandise closer to the game and will auction off the jerseys after the game!

The Peoria Penicillin will hit the ice on March 9 to see if they can kill off an infection of the Pensacola Ice Pilots. It should be a fun night in Peoria, and here's hoping there are side effects in this contest!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!