Happy Accidents is a fascinating, entertaining, and highly accessible look at the surprising role serendipity has played in some of the most important medical discoveries in the twentieth century. What do penicillin, chemotherapy drugs, X-rays, Valium, the Pap smear, and Viagra have in common? They were each discovered accidentally, stumbled upon in the search for something else. In the 1990s, Pfizer had high hopes for a new drug that would boost blood flow to the heart. As they conducted trials on angina sufferers, researchers noted a startling effect: while the drug did not affect blood flow to the heart, it did affect blood flow elsewhere! Now over six million American men have taken Viagra in their lifetime.
Winston Churchill once said, “Men occasionally stumble across the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing has happened.” Within the scientific community, a certain stigma is attached to chance discovery because it is wrongly seen as pure luck. Happy accidents certainly happen every day, but it takes intelligence, insight, and creativity to recognize a “Eureka, I found what I wasn't looking for!” moment and know what to do next. In discussing medical breakthroughs, Dr. Morton Meyers makes a cogent, highly engaging argument for a more creative, rather than purely linear, approach to science. And it may just save our lives!
Preface xi
Introduction: Serendipity, Science's Well-Guarded Secret 1
Part I The Dawn of a New Era: Infectious Diseases and Antibiotics, the Miracle Drugs
1 How Antony's Little Animals Led to the Development of Germ Theory 29
2 The New Science of Bacteriology 34
3 Good Chemistry 38
4 The Art of Dyeing 48
5 Mold, Glorious Mold 59
6 Pay Dirt 82
7 The Mysterious Protein from Down Under 92
8 "This Ulcer 'Bugs' Me!" 99
Part II The Smell of Garlic Launches the War on Cancer
9 Tragedy at Bari 117
10 Antagonists to Cancer 127
11 Veni, Vidi, Vinca: The Healing Power of Periwinkle 131
12 A Heavy Metal Rocks: The Value of Platinum 135
13 Sex Hormones 138
14 Angiogenesis: The Birth of Blood Vessels 140
15 Aspirin Kills More than Pain 148
16 Thalidomide: From Tragedy to Hope 151
17 A Sick Chicken Leads to the Discovery of Cancer-Accelerating Genes 154
18 A Contaminated Vaccine Leads to Cancer-Braking Genes 159
19 From Where It All Stems 165
20 The Industrialization of Research and the War on Cancer 169
21 Lessons Learned 181
Part III A Quivering Quartz String Penetrates the Mystery of the Heart
22 An Unexpected Phenomenon: It's Electric! 187
23 What a Catheter Can Do 195
24 "Dottering" 205
25 A Stitch in Time 208
26 The Nobel Committee Says Yes to NO 215
27 "It's Not You, Honey, It's NO" 220
28 What's Your Number? 225
29 Thinning the Blood 234
Part IV The Flaw Lies in the Chemistry, Not the Character: Mood-Stabilizing Drugs, Antidepressants, and Other Psychotropics
30 It Began with a Dream 241
31 Mental Straitjackets: Shocking Approaches 246
32 Ice-Pick Psychiatry 252
33 Lithium 260
34 Thorazine 266
35 Your Town, My Town, Miltown! 270
36 Conquering the "Beast" of Depression 273
37 Librium and Valium 281
38 "That's Funny, I Have the Same Bug!" 284
39 LSD 287
Conclusion: Taking a Chance on Chance: Cultivating Serendipity 300
Acknowledgments 321
Notes 323
Selected Bibliography 371
Illustration Credits 375
Index 377
Overview
Happy Accidents is a fascinating, entertaining, and highly accessible look at the surprising role serendipity has played in some of the most important medical discoveries in the twentieth century. What do penicillin, chemotherapy drugs, X-rays, Valium, the Pap smear, and Viagra have in common? They were each discovered accidentally, stumbled upon in the search for something else. In the 1990s, Pfizer had high hopes for a new drug that would boost blood flow to the heart. As they conducted trials on angina ...