Imagine That - Technology E-Book

Michael Sells

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: Imagine That
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 139

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Technology's most intriguing stories are the tales of what might have been, those seemingly insignificant incidents that would have had the largest unforeseen effects. Imagine That… Alexander Fleming cleans up his dishes … and penicillin is washed down the drain Steve Jobs skips the company visit to Xerox PAR C … and computers never crack the commercial market Nikola Tesla receives philanthropic support … and the 20th century is illuminated by space age energy and technology Engaging, contentious and compulsively readable, each book in this new series takes the reader on a historical flight of fancy, imagining the consequences if history had gone just that little bit differently.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title PageChapter 1Imagine that: Alexander Fleming cleans up his dishes … and penicillin is washed down the drainChapter 2Imagine that: Nikola Tesla receives philanthropic support … and the 20th century is illuminated by space age energy and technologyChapter 3Imagine that: The transistor falls to a lack of fortuitous findings … and modern technology remains out of mind and reachChapter 4Imagine that: Steve Jobs skips the company visit to Xerox PARC … and computers never crack the commercial marketChapter 5Imagine that: Mark Zuckerberg abandons his Facebook project after early difficulties … and the internet enters its golden ageChapter 6Imagine that: Percy Shaw runs over a cat … and countless more lives are lost in road accidentsChapter 7Imagine that: X-ray technology goes undiscovered … and the limitations of science remain unknownChapter 8Imagine that: Wilson Greatbatch can’t afford to invent the pacemaker … and quality of life for heart patients plummetsChapter 9Imagine that: The Newspaper Radio is a huge success upon release … and 24-hour journalism begins in 1939Chapter 10Imagine that: Mobile phones fail to catch on commercially … and we become a more vocal societyOther books in the series:Copyright

Imagine that …

Some of history’s greatest stories are the tales of what might have been. The agonising missed chances, the harrowingly close shaves, the vital complications that affected a major outcome – the course of history is a precarious one. Seemingly insignificant incidents can have the largest unforeseen impacts.

Scientists have pondered whether the flap of a butterfly’s wings on one continent could lead to a tornado on another, and these chains of cause and effect remain fascinating to us. In this book and the others in the series I take a look at those moments where the smallest tweak would have caused history to pan out very differently.

Hence the title, Imagine That …

Michael Sells

Chapter 1

Imagine that …

Alexander Fleming cleans up his dishes … and penicillin is washed down the drain

Following a month-long family holiday, Alexander Fleming returned to St Mary’s Hospital on the morning of 3 September 1928. The Scot found his laboratory even more cluttered than usual. He had hastily swept his petri dishes to one side before his trip, to clear room for his lab partner Stuart R. Craddock, and the dishes were now piled high. His first task of the day was to sort them. Unsurprisingly, after stewing in the laboratory for a month, the majority of the cultures growing in the dishes had been swamped by mould. Fleming took a large tray of Lysol disinfectant and began placing the contaminated samples within. Normally this would have been a job for a lab assistant but, eager to get back to work, he undertook the task himself. A pivotal distraction soon arrived in the form of D Merlin Pryce, Fleming’s ex-lab assistant, stopping by to welcome him back from holiday.

Six years earlier Fleming had made a key scientific discovery which had drastically impacted upon his work in medicine. At the time, he was monitoring the condition of a patient who was suffering heavily from a head cold, collecting mucus and applying it to samples of bacteria on a daily basis. After a few days of no reaction, the mucus suddenly began to fight the bacteria on day four, successfully killing off large patches and weakening the rest. This had never been seen before. He soon discovered that he was observing the effects of Lysozyme, a naturally occurring bacteria-fighting agent present in tears and mucus.

Newly aware that it was possible to fight bacteria safely and successfully, Fleming spent the following years attempting to devise a drug that would do exactly that. He had been growing cultures of a bacterium called Staphylococcusaureus (Staph aureus) prior to his holiday, a strain responsible for a number of diseases and infections. Staph aureus was just the latest target in a long line of tests.

As he discussed his ongoing research with Pryce, the pair pored over the mouldy dishes. The Lysol tray was now overflowing with contaminated samples and only a handful of dishes at the bottom were fully disinfected. Fleming pulled one of the unwanted samples from the tray to show to his former colleague. Pryce instantly noticed something highly unusual. Where the spores of mould had formed, no bacteria surrounded them – the same phenomenon that Fleming had observed in the Lysozyme. This could mean only one thing: the key to the cure lay in the mould.

He enlisted the help of his lab assistants and partners and set about studying the mould in greater detail. After growing the mould in a pure form they identified the substance as a derivation of a genus of fungi named Penicillium and so penicillin was born. This provided a much needed update from its previous moniker of ‘Mould Juice’. The team soon found that it could combat far more than just Staphylococcus. More importantly, their studies showed penicillin to be non-toxic. In 1888, a German scientist named E. de Freudenreich had managed to isolate an antibacterial substance named Pyocyanase, but faced one small problem. Pyocyanase was highly toxic to humans. Fleming’s work on both Lysozyme and penicillin had proven that non-toxic antibiotics were a possibility. Work began on creating exactly that.

Fleming and his team lacked the required expertise to do this though, so they handed over the research. It was picked up by a team of pharmacologists based at Oxford University, led by Howard Florey (left) and Ernst Chain. It would take a decade and a horde of tireless biochemists the world over to transform the raw penicillin into the world’s first antibiotic. After a number of years’ worth of successful trials had been carried out on mice, the first ‘positive’ human trial ended in tragedy.

In February of 1941, Reserve Constable Albert Alexander of the County of Oxford Police Department sustained an injury to the inside of his mouth while pruning roses in his garden. He was rushed to hospital having contracted an aggressive infection which caused large abscesses to form both internally and on the surface of his body. With a host of trial data supporting the drug, it was finally time to try penicillin out on a human. The doctors were given the go-ahead and Constable Alexander’s course of treatment began. The early signs were hugely encouraging and, what with the abscesses clearing and his overall condition improving greatly, he looked like he would make a full recovery.

The medical team were still learning about penicillin, however, and, with no prior practical experience, mistakes were always a possibility in the maiden test. The doctors fell short of the required dosage and when supplies ran out they were unable to produce more due to the wartime restrictions placed upon the laboratory. Without penicillin to aid him, Constable Alexander suffered a relapse and eventually died on 15 March 1941. It was a personal tragedy but a medical triumph. The patient’s initial response left the team in no doubt as to the drug’s healing capabilities. Numerous successful trials followed and penicillin began to make its way into the hands of doctors.

Serving in World War I, Fleming had seen first-hand the damning effects of bacteria in warzones, with even the most innocuous looking grazes rendered fatal. It was a harsh reality that had long troubled him and was the driving force behind his successful research. His hopes were realised in 1941, thanks to Howard Florey. With the US entering into the war, Florey managed to persuade American pharmaceutical companies to mass produce the drug. No fewer than 39 laboratories were set up across the United States with the specific intention of synthesising inorganic penicillin for mass production. In 1943 British companies followed suit.

By 1944 there were sufficient supplies of penicillin to cover the Allied armies, providing a much needed boost at a crucial stage of the conflicts. The new antibiotic meant that patients needing surgery could be sustained for longer, keeping infections at bay so that many received life-saving surgery and treatment that would otherwise have been futile. It was the perfect drug for the army, since it did not require refrigeration like many other medicines that had been developed up until then. As a result, large quantities could be stored easily, which was a necessity when caring for entire army camps. Death and amputation rates soon dropped.

The worldwide effort to develop this ‘wonder drug’ meant that there need not be a repeat of the sad case of Constable Alexander: by the end of World War I, penicillin was 20 times more potent than the pre-war trial version. Small scratches were no longer potentially fatal, even in undevelopednations. Doctors were now able to save children from scarlet fever and stomach infections. It was not just the potency that had increased either. By the 1950s, more than 250,000 patients a month were being prescribed penicillin for their ailments. Never before had pharmacists possessed a drug that was in such demand. Huge quantities were being produced and consequently the prices dropped significantly. Post-war, the NHS enabled even the poorest people to receive treatment. Thousands of hospital beds and hours of doctors’ time were freed up to care for patients with more serious conditions.

By 1945, penicillin had been developed beyond its basic form, with numerous strains developed to combat further infections and viruses. As the first ever non-toxic antibiotic, it had been a revelation in terms of both practical and commercial success. The moneymaking potential prompted great investment into antibiotics and laid the groundwork for a bright new era of medical science.

On that fateful day in 1928, penicillin ran a gauntlet like so many of history’s greatest discoveries, stumbling haphazardly into the hands of the one person capable of utilising it. It just so happened that on that day each and every possible intervention or alteration was avoided, but Fleming could so easily have washed one of medicine’s greatest advancements down the drain.

World War II was a hugely productive time for penicillin and medicine in general. It was crucial that Fleming’s discovery came when it did. If the work on penicillin had not begun before the war, or even if it had started a couple of years later than it did, it is likely that the resultant advances in medicine would have been set back significantly. Without the ripe testing ground of war camps it is likely to have taken years to convince the public of penicillin’s healing powers. The cumulative effect of the breakthrough in development coinciding with the start of the war and the enormous demand created by wartime infection meant that it was given unequivocal support at a time when medicine was being backed more than ever. This makes it all the more important that Fleming’s finding was made, as he unwittingly sidestepped numerous obstacles that could have destroyed the vital sample.

If Fleming had taken his holiday at a different time of year, it is unlikely that he would have returned to dishes covered with penicillin. Without assisted and controlled conditions being put in place, winter temperatures would have stopped the bacteria from growing, while summer heat would have eliminated the penicillin. As it was, the autumnal conditions were perfectly accommodating and penicillin flourished amid the dishes of bacteria. It was also a matter of great fortune that Fleming happened to be working on Staphylococcus at the time, as many other cultures would have survived the penicillin.

Beyond the precise scientific conditions that allowed for the discovery, a host of logistical factors benefited the process too. Given that Fleming usually employed an assistant to clear up after his experiments, such as co-discoverer D. Merlin Pryce, the cultures would ordinarily have been cleared up weeks earlier. It is highly doubtful that the unusual growths would have been granted sufficient attention by a lab-assistant performing such a menial task. Alternately, if the Lysol tray had been a bigger size, capable of holding and submerging the large number of petri dishes, no samples would have survived for Fleming to show to Pryce. In fact, the likelihood is that if Fleming had so much as moved elsewhere to hold conversation with the sharp-sighted Pryce, the bacterial occurrence would have gone undetected and the dishes would have been disastrously submerged in disinfectant.

Fleming was not alone in his impassioned stance towards combatting wartime infections, but it took the perils of war to force the hand of the War Production Board and pharmaceutical companies alike. Over the six long years of conflict, great strides were made in the world of medical technology thanks to the redoubling of efforts and, more importantly, resources. Without Fleming, antibiotics may still have come into production a few years later, or maybe it would have taken a few decades. We could still have been waiting for them even now. It is impossible to say for certain. What we can be sure of is that any delay would have cost and cost dearly.

Penicillin’s rapid development was in no small part down to the commercial intent of the manufacturers, though it could ultimately have been held back by it too. The companies called in to produce viable forms of penicillin for troops, including Glaxo (of GlaxoSmithKline) and Pfizer, flourished in the aftermath of the war. Although efforts at the time were funded by government grants, there was great value in being known as a company that empowered the war effort. Such a successful and widely sought after substance could have made Fleming, Florey and the rest of the research team incredibly wealthy, and with one key acquisition this would have happened.

Ernst Chain, a German refugee and Florey’s colleague at Oxford, was said to be hesitant when talk of sharing the research effort with America was first mooted. Britain could only take the project so much further and American resources would enable them to take the next vital step into mass production. Chain, however, felt that they should continue to develop penicillin in Britain, at least until they had gained key patents. A truly British sense of morality dictated that patents were rarely sought for widely beneficial medical practices and products. It was not law, but British scientists adhered to this code of conduct rigorously. Chain struggled to come to terms with this approach. After all, medicine was a career to him and he could not see what was wrong with seeking rewards. If the team had done as Chain had wished and kept their work secret until securing patents, then the evolution of penicillin, and indeed the war, would have altered dramatically.

On 14 May 1944, Time Magazine ran a story on Alexander Fleming. His face adorned the cover – a feat in itself – and the words: ‘His penicillin will save more lives than war can spend’ ran beneath. It was a prophetic statement. Less than a month later on 6 June 1944, Allied troops commenced the D-Day landings, descending upon the shores of Normandy in Northern France. Wading through the shallows of the Channel, swooping down from the skies above, they entered into the range of Nazi fire. A brutal and hard fought battle ensued, in which the lives of more than 12,000 Allied troops were claimed. The death toll could have been even higher, if Ernst Chain had kept penicillin quiet.

It is estimated that on D-Day alone, 3,000 injured troops survived thanks to penicillin staving off gangrene, as countless infected flesh wounds were treated and overcome. Cuts, scrapes and flesh wounds that a few years before would have been fatal could now be effectively treated by the medics. The penicillin was vital but relied upon mass production to be able to meet demand. The advances made by American pharmaceutical companies meant those 3,000 troops could be treated. Small quantities of patented and privately produced penicillin would have been of little use. Many historians consider D-Day to have been the tipping point in the war, a critical factor in the downfall of Nazi Germany. This was just one high profile instance of penicillin’s vital role in World War II, but it formed a crucial cog in the Allied forces’ machine on a daily basis, strengthening the staying power of an entire army.

Penicillin’s involvement in World War II relied not just on the perilously uncertain nature of the discovery, but also upon who the chance discoverer was. As Chain had shown, the British code of ethics was not a universally shared approach. If the vital spores of mould had sprouted in a laboratory in Germany, America, or various other nations across the globe, the development of penicillin could well have become a covert operation, stalled by secrecy and patenting. It could even have revitalised Nazi troops.