The fraud of Abderhalden's enzymes

Casimer Funk, nonconformist nomenclature, and networks surrounding the discovery of vitamins

In the 2 decades between when the existence of vitamins was first postulated and when they were isolated, scientists and research physicians could produce no conclusive evidence for their existence from the laboratory or clinic. By the time the first vitamin was chemically isolated, vitamins were already widely accepted by scientists, clinicians, the public, and government agencies. In the period between when vitamins were postulated and the Nobel Prize was awarded for their discovery, a debate over nomenclature served as a substitute for a priority dispute. The most popular term "vitamine" was introduced by Casimer Funk in 1912 and was changed to "vitamin" by Cecil Drummond in 1920. Initial conditions surrounding the discovery of vitamins, including World War I, necessitated the creation of unusual networks for the dissemination of scientific information about vitamins. In Great Britain, research institutes, government agencies, and individual researchers were instrumental in creating a set of national and international networks for the dissemination of information from research laboratories to hospitals, physicians, pharmaceutical houses, and the public. These networks of dissemination still exert an influence on how scientific information about vitamins is communicated to the public today.

High CJD infectivity remains after prion protein is destroyed

The hypothesis that host prion protein (PrP) converts into an infectious prion form rests on the observation that infectivity progressively decreases in direct proportion to the decrease of PrP with proteinase K (PK) treatment. PrP that resists limited PK digestion (PrP-res, PrP(sc)) has been assumed to be the infectious form, with speculative types of misfolding encoding the many unique transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) agent strains. Recently, a PK sensitive form of PrP has been proposed as the prion. Thus we re-evaluated total PrP (sensitive and resistant) and used a cell-based assay for titration of infectious particles. A keratinase (NAP) known to effectively digest PrP was compared to PK. Total PrP in FU-CJD infected brain was reduced to ≤0.3% in a 2 h PK digest, yet there was no reduction in titer. Remaining non-PrP proteins were easily visualized with colloidal gold in this highly infectious homogenate. In contrast to PK, NAP digestion left 0.8% residual PrP after 2 h, yet decreased titer by >2.5 log; few residual protein bands remained. FU-CJD infected cells with 10× the infectivity of brain by both animal and cell culture assays were also evaluated. NAP again significantly reduced cell infectivity (>3.5 log). Extreme PK digestions were needed to reduce cell PrP to <0.2%, yet a very high titer of 8 logs survived. Our FU-CJD brain results are in good accord with the only other report on maximal PrP destruction and titer. It is likely that one or more residual non-PrP proteins may protect agent nucleic acids in infectious particles.

Historical review: Autointoxication and focal infection theories of dementia praecox

The popularity of theories of autointoxication and focal infection in general medicine and dentistry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries led Emil Kraepelin and others to speculate that dementia praecox was caused by a poisoning of the brain from toxins produced in other parts of the body, notably the sex glands, the intestines and the mouth. Emil Kraepelin's commitment to the autointoxication theory is ignored in the literature on the history of psychiatry due to the focus of historians and clinicians on the major contributions of Kraepelin's methods of clinical psychopathology. Besides heredity, autointoxication and focal infection were the other most dominant theories of the organic aetiology of dementia praecox in the first three decades of its existence as a nosological entity in psychiatry. Rational treatments for dementia praecox that followed logically from these aetio-logical theories were colonic irrigations and major abdominal surgeries such as appendicostomies, colectomies and the removal of presumably infected ovaries, testes and other organs associated with reproduction. Autointoxication and focal infection theories disappeared from psychiatry by the mid-1930s.

The blood of the insane

The history of serological investigations of the blood of the insane is traced from the initial such study in 1854 by a solitary Scottish asylum physician, who counted the blood cells of his lunatic patients under a weak microscope, to the January 2005 announcement by an international team of geneticists of the development of a genomic blood test that can differentially diagnose schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The story of the first claim of the development of a blood test for madness in 1912--the Abderhalden defensive ferments reaction test--is related in detail. Studies of the blood of the insane have followed four general methodological paradigms: the corpuscular richness paradigm (1854); the metabolic paradigm (c. 1895); the immunoserodiagnostic paradigm (1906); and the medical genomics paradigm (2005).

Infectious insanities, surgical solutions: Bayard Taylor Holmes, dementia praecox and laboratory science in early 20th-century America. Part 1

After his 17-year-old son suddenly developed a chronic psychotic illness in 1905, Bayard Taylor Holmes (1852-1924), a Chicago physician and surgeon with no psychiatric training, conducted both library and laboratory research on dementia praecox, as described in Part 1 of this two-part study. By late 1915 he believed he had found support for a focal infection theory of its aetiology--an ergot-like toxaemia caused by faecal stasis in the caecum. Holmes was also the editor of what is believed to be the first medical journal named after a psychiatric disorder: Dementia Praecox Studies. Part 2 will describe Holmes' adoption of a rational therapy (using it first on his son, who died), and his founding of a Psychiatric Research Laboratory.

Antibodies as defensive enzymes

Antibodies (Abs) and enzymes are structural and functional relatives. Abs with promiscuous peptidase activity are ubiquitous in healthy humans, evidently derived from germline variable domain immunoglobulin genes encoding the serine protease-like nucleophilic function. Exogenous and endogenous electrophilic antigens can bind the nucleophilic sites covalently, and recent evidence suggests that immunization with such antigens can induce proteolytic antibodies. Previously, Ab catalytic activities have been linked to pathogenic autoimmune reactions, but recent studies indicate that proteolytic Abs may also serve beneficial functions. An example is the rapid and selective cleavage of the HIV-1 coat protein gp120 by IgMs found in uninfected humans. The selectivity of this reaction appears to derive from recognition of gp120 as a superantigen. A second example is the cleavage of amyloid beta-peptide by IgM and IgG from aged humans, a phenomenon that may represent a specific proteolytic response to a neurotoxic endogenous peptide implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease.

Richard Pfeiffer and Alexandre Besredka: creators of the concept of endotoxin and anti-endotoxin

Richard Pfeiffer, working with Robert Koch in Berlin, intellectually and experimentally conceived the concept of endotoxin as a heat-stable bacterial poison responsible for the pathophysiological consequences of certain infectious diseases. Pfeiffer's definition of endotoxin included the inability to evoke neutralizing antibodies against this bacterial toxin. Alexandre Besredka, Ilya (Elie) Metchnikoff's successor at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, was the first to demonstrate that, in fact, antibodies could be engendered which were capable of suppressing the poisonous effects of endotoxin. Endotoxin and anti-endotoxin antibodies have since then fascinated researchers of many disciplines and continue to do so, particularly in the fields of diagnosis, prevention, and therapy of severe Gram-negative infections.

Genetics of susceptibility to tuberculosis: Mengele's experiments in Auschwitz

Great experiments will always be remembered. I highlight an experiment that was conducted during the Nazi regime in Germany. Not only did the experiment fail, it was also linked to fraud and crimes against humanity. This failed experiment will never be forgotten.

Suppression of scientific research: bahramdipity and nulltiple scientific discoveries

The fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip can be taken to be allegorical of not only chance discovery (serendipity) but of other aspects of scientific discovery as well. Just as Horace Walpole coined serendipity, so can the term bahramdipity be derived from the tale and defined as the cruel suppression of a serendipitous discovery. Suppressed, unpublished discoveries are designated nulltiples. Several examples are presented to make the case that bahramdipity is an existent aspect of scientific discovery. Other examples of non-ideal scientific research and discovery are provided in order to contrast and clarify the meaning and use of bahramdipity. Additional allegories of scientific discovery are taken from the tale and a hope for the strengthening of scientific integrity is expressed.