Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fleming, Alexander
FLEMING, ALEXANDER, M.D. (1824–1875), was born in 1824 at Edinburgh, where he studied medicine and graduated M.D. in 1844. His chief work was his college essay on the 'Physiological and Medicinal Properties of Aconitum Napellus,' Lond. 1845, which led to the introduction of a tincture of aconite of uniform strength known as Fleming's tincture. Having spent some years at Cork as professor of materia medica in the Queen's College, he went in 1858 to Birmingham, where he held the honorary office of physician to the Queen's Hospital until his retirement through ill-health in 1873. He died at Brixton, London, on 21 Aug. 1875. Besides the works above mentioned, he published two introductory addresses and two papers in the 'Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science' (on measles of the pig, and on the classification of medicines).
[Brit. Med. Journ. ii. 1875.]