Transcript Slide 1 - Technology Innovation and Controversy

Who Invented It?
The Controversial History of
Technology and Invention
http://technologyinnovation.webs.com
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved
The First Medical Miracle
• Millions of mothers - beginning in the middle
ages
• Several “discoveries” which were ignored
• Winston Churchill and Adolph Hitler Eleanor
Roosevelt and FDR Jr.
• Lots of medical dead ends – many of them
harmful
• Psalm 51
• Five Nobel Laureates
• A little girl with an infected arm
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved
References
• Hager, Thomas, “The Demon Under the
Microscope – From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi
Labs, One Doctor’s Heroic Search for the World’s
First Miracle Drug”, Harmony Books, New York,
2006
• Dejauregul, Ruth, “100 Medical Milestones that
Shaped World History”, Bluewood Books, San
Mateo, CA, 1998
• http://www.life.umd.edu/classroom/bsci424/BSCI2
23WebSiteFiles/AntibioticsHistory.htm
• http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org
• http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ for information on
Prontosil, Salversan, childbed fever, Gerhard
Domagk, Penicillin, Alexander Fleming, Joseph
Lister, Paul Ehrlich and Nobel Prize controversies
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved
Childbed Fever
• Septicaemia contracted during
or shortly after childbirth, caused
by Staphylococcus and
Streptococcus.
• Hospitals for childbirth became
common in the 17th century. The
first epidemic of childbed
(puerperal) fever occurred in
Paris in 1646.
• Europe and America: death
rates of 20-25%, occasionally
100%
• 18th and 19th centuries: 6 to 9
women in every 1000 deliveries
• The most common cause of
maternal mortality; about half of
all deaths related to childbirth
• Puerperal fever is now rare in
the West due to improved
hygiene during delivery and
antibiotics.
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved
Joseph Lister and Sir Almroth Wright - Antiseptics
• Carbolic acid on wounds reduced the incidence of
gangrene; published findings 1867.
• Created sterile surgery: clean gloves, wash
hands, instruments washed in carbolic acid,
sprayed the operating theatre.
• Wright developed vaccines, promoted
immunization for the UK Army
• 1902 - Wright started research department at St
Mary's Hospital Medical School, London. Endorsed
Alexander Fleming’s demonstration that antiseptics
couldn’t stop sepsis and could cause harm
• Developed typhoid inoculation and measurement
of protective substances in blood.
• Wright warned that antibiotics would create
resistant bacteria
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Paul Ehrlich – Salversan and Chemotherapy
• Worked on a diphtheria serum and less toxic
sleeping sickness therapy
• 1908 Nobel Prize for Medicine
• 1909 with Hata developed Salvarsan - effective
against syphilis - derived from an azo dye
• Coined "chemotherapy" and "magic bullet" :
selectively staining tissues and bacteria could
deliver a toxin
• Research focused on the dyes not compounds
attached to the dyes.
• Josef Klarer and Fritz Mietzsch at IG Farben
created azo dyes, to repeat success of
Salversan
• The concept of a "magic bullet" was fully
realized with the invention of monoclonal
antibodies
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved
Paul Ehrlich and
Hata Sahachiro
I.G. Farben
• Conglomerate of eight leading
German chemical
manufacturers, including
Bayer, Hoechst and BASF the largest chemical firms in
the world.
• Dyes were a top product line
• Josef Klarer and Fritz Mietzsch
at IG Farben created azo dyes,
to repeat the success of
Salversan
I.G. Farben Headquarters
1931 - Frankfurt
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved
Gerhard Domagk - Sulphanamides
• Survived Ypres, later wounded and became
an orderly in Ukraine field hospital and
Russian cholera hospitals
• 1927 - began research at I.G.
Farbenindustrie
• Chemists Josef Klarer and Fritz Mietzsch
provided hundreds of compounds for
Domagk’s biological research
• 1932 - discovered a red dye compound
protected mice and rabbits from
staphylococci and streptococci
• “Prontosil” – sulphanilamide - isolated 1908
by Paul Gelmo who didn’t realized its medical
potential
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved
Gerhard Domagk
• Domagk cured his daughter from
near fatal streptococcal infection but
omitted it in his report on the drug
• Waited until 1935 to publish when
clinical results were available from
two German hospitals
• European clinical success of
Prontosil
• 1936 – Prontisil saves FDR Jr.
• 1939 - Domagk awarded Nobel
Prize in Medicine for the first drug
effective against bacterial infections.
Nazi regime prevented acceptance;
Gestapo arrests Domagk.
• Extended his work on
sulphonamides with Klarer and
Mietzsch
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved
Alexander Fleming - Penicillin
• WWI - British Army Medical Corps;
demonstrated why anti-septics were
ineffective and harmful to patients – Sir
Almroth Wright endorsed his work.
• 1928 - researching staphylococci; noticed a
mold contamination killed staphylococci
cultures.
• 1929 - Named the mold product penicillin
• 1929 publication ignored. Cultivating the
mold and isolating the antibiotic was
extremely difficult.
• Clinical tests inconclusive, but some trials
were encouraging
• Abandoned penicillin in 1940
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Penicillin
• After Pearl Harbor the US and
UK governments fund research
by Howard Florey and Ernst
Chain to produce penicillin in
quantities and develop
medicines.
• By D-day they made enough
penicillin to treat all the
wounded allied forces.
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved
Sulpha vs. Penicillin
• At Casablanca in Jan. 1943
the German bombing
campaign is agreed
• 1943 – Allies bomb IG Farben
at Wuppertal where Gerhard
Domagk developed sulfa drugs
• Dec. 1943 - Churchill becomes
ill at Carthage
• Churchill is saved by
sulphonamides. UK papers
credit the British discovery of
penicillin, rather than sulpha
which was developed in
Germany.
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved
I.G. Farben
• 1941 - builds a synthetic rubber
factory in Monowitz (Poland) near
Auschwitz. About 28,000 camp
inmates made available as laborers
die
• Farben works at Wuppertal bombed in
1943 as part of the air battle of the
Ruhr
• Leading supplier of the war economy,
profited from Nazi exploitation of
forced labor
• A company partly owned by IGF
supplied death camps with poisonous
gas Zyklon B.
• 1945 – Allies occupy I.G. Farben
building in Frankfurt which becomes
the headquarters of American forces
in Germany
• 1947-48 company decision-makers
charged in the Nuremberg trials
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved
Post WWII
• 1945 – Alexander
Fleming, Howard Florey
and Ernst Boris Chain
shared the Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine.
• 1947 - Gerhard Domagk
received his 1939 Nobel
Prize – but not the money
• Winston Churchill lives
until 1965.
• FDR Jr. has five
marriages, five children
and lives until 1988
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved
Gerhard Domagk
• Extended his work on
sulphonamides with Klarer
and Mietzsch
• Domagk developed
chemotherapy for
tuberculosis which helped
curb the post-WWII
European tuberculosis
epidemic
• Continued research and
teaching until his death in
1964
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved
Sulpha vs. Penicillin
• Fleming did not discover penicillin.
Decades before scientists and
physicians had studied its medicinal
characteristics
• Fleming noted Psalm 51: "Purge me
with hyssop and I shall be clean".
• Fleming learned from Charles Thom who helped Fleming identify the mold
- that penicillium notatum was first
recognised by Westling, a Swedish
chemist, from a specimen of decayed
hyssop
Alexander Fleming
Gerhard Domagk
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved
Sulpha and Penicillin vs. Resistant Bacteria
• Sulfonamides can cause kidney stones
and changes in bone marrow.
• Sir Almroth Wright (1861-1947) warned
that antibiotics would create resistant
bacteria.
• Genetic mutation in bacteria create
resistant strains. These result from
antibiotic use in medicine and veterinary
medicine.
• The greater the duration of exposure the
greater the risk of the development of
resistance.
• Despite a push for new antibiotic therapies
there has been a continued decline in the
number of newly approved drugs.
Antibiotic resistance therefore poses a
significant problem.
© Copyright 2010 Robert D. Conway All Rights Reserved