Understanding Blood and Hemoglobin: An Example of International Relations in Science

UNDERSTANDING BLOOD AND HEMOGLOBIN: AN EXAMPLE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS IN SCIENCE JOHN T. EDSALL* The essence of science is open communication of inquiry and discovery . Scientists are almost unique in considering themselves as members of a worldwide fellowship. In time of war, freedom of communication between those on opposite sides is inevitably impaired though not necessarily completely broken. It was indeed an exceptional episode when Sir Humphrey Davy in 1813 spent several months in France, even though, because of the Napoleonic Wars, England and France were mortal enemies at the time. Davy's visit was approved by Napoleon, and he was warmly welcomed by his French colleagues, I cannot think of any twentieth -century parallel to this episode. Yet I have read that the astronomers in Germany and in the Soviet Union managed to remain in radio communication throughout the Second World War, to exchange astronomical data, in spite of the titanic conflict between the two countries that was going on. There are increasing threats to the long tradition ofopen communication in science, owing primarily to the increasingly close connection between basic science and its military applications. Now many members of the scientific community work in secrecy, outside the traditional realm of open communication. Currently, there are increasing pressures to close off still more of the flow of open communication—even in some areas that are vital to human health and welfare. I view such trends with grave anxiety: a continuing increase in the domain of science that is regarded as secret is, to my mind, very dangerous. Except for very rare and special cases, it deserves to be resisted. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Eraldo Antonini (1931-1983). The author gratefully acknowledges support from National Science Foundation grant SES-8308892. *Professor of biochemistry emeritus, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology , 7 Divinity Avenue, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138.© 1986 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 003 1-5982/86/2932/$01 .00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 29, 3, Part 2 · Spring 1986 | SlO/ I turn now to my theme of today—the story of international cooperation in the study of blood and hemoglobin, a field that has gained profoundly , again and again, from such cooperation [1, 2]. A Young Man in Bonn (1867) My story starts in Germany more than a century ago, with the work of a 20-year-old student in Bonn—Nathan Zuntz—who was investigating the uptake and release of CO2 from serum and from whole blood. He noted that the red cells, when separated from serum and exposed to a given CO2 pressure, took up about three times as much CO2 as an equivalent volume ofserum when separated from the cells. Yet, when he exposed whole blood to the same CO2 pressure and then separated cells from serum and analyzed both, he found far more bicarbonate in the serum than in the cells. He perceived that most of the bicarbonate formed from CO2 must originate in the cells and must then migrate across the cells into the plasma. He recognized the role of the blood proteins in serving as bases (proton acceptors, to use modern terminology ) that could neutralize the acidic (hydrated) CO2 and convert it to bicarbonate [3]. There was, of course, far more to be learned about these phenomena. Indeed, the subject is still a live one, and there are problems not yet understood. Zuntz became an eminent physiologist, and we shall meet him again, more than 40 years later, as a member of an international expedition with colleagues from abroad. A Crucial Turning Point at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Now let us continue with one of the most important advances ever made in the study of hemoglobin, 40 years after the discovery by Zuntz. The year was 1904 and the place was Copenhagen. Before the catastrophe of 1914-1918, there was an ease and freedom of international travel and visiting in Europe that the world has not known since. Travelers from Europe and from elsewhere in the world could move freely from country to country. For Imperial Russia passports were indeed recommended, but even there they were not absolutely necessary. This was the...