It didn’t help TB, but on this date, it was trialled on leprosy patients, with miraculous results. The drug is now part of a treatment that has saved millions of people from this horrible disease. Interestingly, St Stephen’s Green in Dublin was once a leper hospital, and the disease lives on in Irish place names such as Leopardstown (Town of the Lepers).

After discovering the revolutionary anti-leprosy drug clofazimine, Mr Barry and his team were awarded the 1980 UNESCO Science Prize.