Streptomycin, Schatz v. Waksman, and the balance of credit for discovery

Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

Volumn 59, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 441-462

  Kingston, William ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Albert Schatz; Antibiotics; Credit for discovery; Editorial duty of care; Nature; Selman Waksman

Indexed keywords

STREPTOMYCIN;

ARTICLE; AWARDS AND PRIZES; HISTORY; HUMAN; LEGAL ASPECT; MICROBIOLOGY; PUBLICATION; PUBLISHING; RESEARCH; STANDARD;

HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; NOBEL PRIZE; PERIODICALS; PUBLISHING; RESEARCH; SOIL MICROBIOLOGY; STREPTOMYCIN;

EID: 85047693030     PISSN: 00225045     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jhmas/jrh091     Document Type: Review

References (83)

1. Peter A. Lawrence, "Rank Injustice," Nature, 2002, 41;, 835-36.
2. Albert Schatz, Pak. Dent. Rev., 1965, 15, 125-134.
3. Milton Wainwright, "Streptomycin: Discovery and Resultant Controversy," Hist. Phil, Life Sci., 1991, 13, 97-124:
4. "much of the credit for the discovery belongs to ...Albert Schatz," p. 97.
5. E-mail from Maxine Clarke of Nature, 6 March 2002. Copy on file with author.
6. Milton Wairiwright, Miracle Cure: The Story of Penicillin and the Golden Age of Antibiotics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990).
7. Veronique Mistiaen, "Time and the Great Healer," Guardian Weekend, London, 2 November 2002, pp. 61-67.
8. Quoted in S. A. Waksman, The Antibiotic Era (Tokyo: Waksman Foundation of Japan, 1975), P. 13.
9. J. Friday, "Huxley and Antibiosis in 1875," Br.J, Hist. Sci., 1974, 7, 61-71.
10. S. A. Waksman, Scientific Monthly, November 1940.
11. D. Wilson, Penicillin in Perspective (London: Faber and Faber, 1976), pp. 44, 121.
12. R. Hare, The Birth of Penicillin (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1970).
13. J. W. Bigger, C. R. Boland, and R. A. Q. O'Meara, "Variant Colonies of Staphlococcus Aureus," J. Pathol. Bacteriol., 1928, 30, 261-68.
14. G. MacFarlane, Alexander Fleming, the Man and the Myth (London: Chatto and Windus, 1984), p. 138.
15. Fleming did identify one practical use for the compound, applying it to research on the presumed influenza bacillus. A. Fleming, "On the Antibacterial Action of Cultures of Penicillium, with Special Reference to Their Use in the Isolation of B. infuenzae," Brit. J. Exper. Path., 1929, 10, 226-36.
16. E. B. Chain, H. Florey, et al., "Penicillin as a Chemotherapeutic Agent," Lancet, 24 August 1940, 239, 226-28.
17. H. B. Woodruff, "A Soil Microbiologist's Odyssey," Annu. Rev. Microbiol., 1981, 35, 1-28.
18. S. A. Waksman, My Life with the Microbes (London: Robert Hale, 1958), p. 182.
19. S. A. Waksman and R. E. Curtis, "The Actinomyces of the Soil," Soil Sci., 1916, 1, 99-134
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21. Waksman, Antibiotic Era, p. 3.
22. Ibid., p. 10.
23. Waksman, My Life with the Microbes, p. 18.
24. Ibid., p. 11.
25. The first of these papers was S. A. Waksman, J. W. Foster, and J. J. Hutchins, "Associative arid Antagonistic Effect of Microorganisms," Soil Sci., 1937, 43, 51-92.
26. S. A. Waksman, Principles of Soil Microbiology (Baltimore: Williams and Williams, 1927), p. 641.
27. Wainwright, Miracle Cure, p. 143.
28. R. Dubos, "Studies on a Bactericidal Agent Extracted from a Soil Bacillus," J. Exp, Meet., 1939, 70, 1-17.
29. G. F. Gause, "Gramicidin S. and Early Antibiotic Research in the Soviet Union," in History of Antibiotics, ed. Parascandola, pp. 91-96.
30. Waksman, My Life with the Microbes, p. 206.
31. S. A. Waksman, "A Most Fruitful Connection," Merck J., 1963, 10.
32. W. H. Helfland, H. B. Woodruff, K. M. H. Coleman, and D. L. Cowan, "Wartime Industrial Production of Penicillin in the United States," in History of Antibiotics, ed. Parascandola, pp. 31-56.
33. Waksman, Antibiotic Era, p. 35.
34. S. A. Waksman and H. B. Woodruff, "Bacteriostatic and Bactericidal Substances Produced by Soil Actinomycetes," Proc. Soc, Exp. Biol, Med., 1940, 45, 609-14.
35. Mistiaen, "Time and the Great Healer," p. 63.
36. A. Schatz, E. Bugie, and S. A. Waksman, "Streptomycin, A Substance Exhibiting Antibiotic Activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative Bacteria," Proc. Soc, Exp. Biol, Med., 1944, 55, 65-69. The name streptomycin was derived from the work of Frederick Cohn, who named an actinomycete Strcptothrix in 1872.
37. Crellin, "Antibiosis in the Nineteenth Century," p. 6.
38. In discussion with the editor of Biological Abstracts. See Notes and Events, J. Hist. Med. All. Sci., 1973, 28, 284. Reference kindly provided by one of the anonymous reviewers of this article.
39. K. F. Kiple, ed., Cambridge World History of Human Disease (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
40. H. A. Lechevalier, "The Search for Antibiotics in Rutgers University," in The History of Antibiotics, ed. Parascandola, pp. 113-24.
41. Also see H. A. Lechevalier, "The 25 Years of Neomycin," CRC Crit. Rev. Microbiol., 1975, 3, 359-97.
42. Letter from Schatz to Waksman dated 21 May 1946. Selmari A. Waksman Papers (R-MC 003). Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries, New Brunswick, N.J. (Hereinafter cited as Waksman papers.) This letter is also quoted in Wainwright, Streptomycin: Discovery, pp. 113-14.
43. Wainwright, Miracle Cure, p. 129.
44. Waksman, My Life with the Microbes, p. 250.
45. Wainwright, Miracle Cure, pp. 132-35.
46. Such as www.garynull.com/Issues/Fluoride/FluoridcVoices.htm, www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/fluoride.htm, and www.apfn.org./apfn/poison.htm. All accessed 27 January 2004.
47. Mistiaen, "Time and the Great Healer," p. 67.
48. See account of this development online at www.mayo.edu/research/history. Accessed 27 January 2004.
49. Wainwright, Miracle Cure, p. 142.
50. D. Mowery, R. R. Nelson, B. Sampat, and A. Ziedonis, "The Growth of Patenting by American Universities: An Assessment of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980," Res. Pol., 2001, 30, 99-119.
51. I b i d.
52. Letter dated 5 February 1951 from the university's attorney, Russell E. Watson, to Arthur F. Vanderbilt, Waksman papers.
53. Sam Epstein, "Streptomycin Background Material," p. 9, Waksman papers.
54. See online document available at www.patenting-art.com/economic/awards. htm. Accessed 27 January 2004.
55. Hare, Birth of Penicillin, p. 51.
56. McFarlane, Alexander Fleming, p. 148.
57. S. A. Waksman, The Conquest of Tuberculosis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), p. 118.
58. Waksman, My Life with the Microbes, p. 184.
59. Wainwright, Miracle Cure, p. 146.
60. See P. J. Federico, "Origins of Section 103," in Nonobviousness - The Ultimate Condition of Patentability, ed. J. F. Witherspoon (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs, 1978).
61. Wainwright, Miracle Cure, p. 142.
62. I b i d.
63. Lawrence, Rank Injustice, p. 835.
64. Wainwright, "Streptomycin: Discovery and Resultant Controversy," p. 109.
65. Sam Epstein, "Streptomycin Background Material," p. 12,
66. Waksman papers. Bugie herself also confirmed it, see following note. Wainwright also quotes this, "Streptomycin: Discovery and Resultant Controversy," p. 117.
67. For Bugle's reflections on the origin of streptomycin, see online document at http://fox.rollins.edu/~egregory/parent.html. Accessed 27 January 2004.
68. Wainwright, Miracle Cure, p. 130.
69. Wainwright, "Streptomycin: Discovery and Resultant Controversy," p. 124.
70. Wainwright, Miracle Cure, p. 130.
71. Title 35 of the U.S. Code, Section 101.
72. Wainwright, "Streptomycin: Discovery and Resultant Controversy," p. 115.
73. R. Vallery-Radot, La Vie de Pasteur (Paris: Flammarion, 1900), chap. 4.
74. Sam Epstein and Beryl Williams, Miracles from Microbes: The Road to Streptomycin (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1946), p. 136. Emphasis added.
75. R. W. Porter, "Streptomycin Engineered into Commercial Production," Chem. Engin. vol. 53, October 1946.
76. Mistiaen, "Time and the Great Healer," p. 65.
77. Waksman, My Life with the Microbes, p. 251.
78. Epstein and Williams, Miracles from Microbes, pp. 70, 126.
79. "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, letter to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676;
80. A. Rupert Hall, Isaac Newton: Adventurer in Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
81. The Times, 25 February 2002, Section 2, p. 10;
82. Mistiaen, "Time and the Great Healer,"p. 64.
83. E-mail from Maxine Clarke of Nature, 22 August 2002. Copy on file with author.