The Failed Malaria Cure
A teenager ruins an experiment over the Easter holidays. Eight steps later, medicine learns how to aim.
- Quinine, stripped from the bark of a South American tree, was the only thing that treated malaria.
Quinine, stripped from the bark of a South American tree, was the only thing that treated malaria. Britain's empire ran on it and could never get enough.
- In 1856 an eighteen-year-old student tried to build quinine out of coal tar over his Easter holiday, in a laboratory he had rigged up at home.
In 1856 an eighteen-year-old student tried to build quinine out of coal tar over his Easter holiday, in a laboratory he had rigged up at home.
- He got a black sludge.
He got a black sludge. Rinsing the flask out with alcohol turned the liquid an intense purple, and he stopped to look at it rather than pour it away.
- Purple had been the colour of emperors for a hard reason.
Purple had been the colour of emperors for a hard reason. The old dye was milked one drop at a time from a Mediterranean sea snail, and a few grams cost many thousands of them.
- His accident made that colour cheap overnight.
His accident made that colour cheap overnight. When Queen Victoria wore it to a royal wedding the resulting craze was severe enough that the press named it mauve measles.
- Coal tar had until then been a nuisance left over from making gas for streetlights.
Coal tar had until then been a nuisance left over from making gas for streetlights. Within decades the firms pulling dyes out of it had become the German chemical industry.
- A German physician noticed that some of these dyes stained one kind of bacterium and left the surrounding tissue clean.
A German physician noticed that some of these dyes stained one kind of bacterium and left the surrounding tissue clean. If a molecule could find a target that precisely, he…
- The result was the first synthetic drug that attacked a specific pathogen, and the principle underneath chemotherapy.
The result was the first synthetic drug that attacked a specific pathogen, and the principle underneath chemotherapy. A ruined attempt at a malaria cure had taught medicine how…