Dr. Martin Arrowsmith: Scientist and Medical Hero

DR. MARTIN ARROWSMITH: SCIENTIST AND MEDICAL HERO HOWARD GEST* The famous dramatic novel Arrowsmith [1] by Sinclair "Red" Lewis (1885-1951) published in 1925 was an important element in my decision to become a bacteriologist. No doubt, many scientists of my generation were also inspired in the same way, and we now have some insight into development of the novel from a detailed biography of Lewis by Mark Schorer [2] and an autobiographical memoir by Paul de Kruif [3]. Despite some inconsistencies between the two accounts, they provide interesting insider views of the evolution of an acclaimed novel based on a scientific theme. Lewis was noted for exhaustive research on backgrounds for his novels. In this instance, microbiology was at center stage. After deciding to write a "medical/scientific" novel, Lewis needed a scientifically trained collaborator, and this turned out to be Dr. Paul de Kruif. The Scientific Story Line in Arrowsmith In medical school, Martin Arrowsmith comes under the sway of Professor Max Gottlieb, the professor of bacteriology. Gottlieb, an immigrant from Germany, is described as having worked with both Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, two of the giants of infectious disease research . Born in 1850, Gottlieb (in 1881) was "confirming Pasteur's results in chicken cholera immunity and, for relief and pastime, trying to separate an enzyme from yeast." A few years later "he was analyzing critically the ptomain theory of disease, and investigating the mechanism of the attenuation of virulence of microrganisms." Gottlieb's "dream project," however, was the "artificial production of antitoxin in vitro," and he finally succeeded. Thus: "It was at this time that Gottlieb suc- *Department of Biology and Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405.© 1991 by The University of Chicago. AU rights reserved. 003 1 -5982/92/350 1-0752$0 1 .00 116 Howard Gest ¦ Dr. Martin Arrowsmith ceeded in his master-work after twenty years of seeking. He produced antitoxin in the test-tube, which meant that it would be possible to immunize against certain diseases without tediously making sera by the inoculation of animals. It was a revolution, the revolution, in immunology ... if he was right." (Synthesis of proteins in vitro was actually accomplished first during the 1960s.) Following graduation from medical school, Arrowsmith makes a number of false starts in his career. Eventually he accepts a position as an independent researcher at the McGurk Institute of Biology in New York, where Gottlieb is a revered staff member. (The institute is patterned after the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, where de Kruif was a staff member for several years.) Working with a strain of staphylococcus from a carbuncle of a patient at the "Lower Manhattan Hospital," Arrowsmith makes his first exciting, and serendipitous, discovery , recording in his notebook, "I have observed a principle, which I shall temporarily call the X Principle, in pus from a staphylococcus infection, which checks the growth of several strains of staphylococcus, and which dissolves the staphylococci from the pus in question." He establishes that the X Principle reproduces itself indefinitely in living staphylococci—but it is not clear whether the principle is a virus or an enzyme of some sort. In any event, the idea that the X Principle may cure "germ diseases" quickly surfaces. The discovery causes considerable excitement at the institute, and the director plans to submit to the board of trustees a plan for a new Department of Microbic Pathology , with Arrowsmith as head. But then the roof falls in. Gottlieb has the unpleasant duty to inform Arrowsmith: "It iss a pity, Martin, but you are not the discoveror of the X Principle ." "Wh-what—" "Some one else has done it." "They have not! I've searched all the literature, and except for Twort, not one person has even hinted at anticipating—Why, Dr. Gottlieb, it would mean that all I've done, all these weeks, has just been waste, and I'm a fool—" "Veil. Anyvay. D'Herelle of the Pasteur Institute has just now published In the Comptes Rendus, Académie des Sciences, a report—it is your X Principle, absolute. Only he calls it 'bacteriophage.' So." "Then I'm—" "In his mind Martin...