The Book of Lies: History of Science and the Nobel Prize

[Cronos Impera]

This is part one of a series of articles regarding lies in the history of science, plagiarism, stupidity and ignorance.


Scroll No. 1 <<He saved your grandparents>>

Undoubtably, the world would be a smaller one without a long-term treatment to diabetes. Diabetes is the second reason of death among elders after heart diseases.
This is the man who made it all possible, Nicolae Paulescu.

http://www.gid-romania.com/images/contentmanager/paulescu_nicolae.jpgNicolae C. Paulescu (1869- 1931)
A brief chronology
1919. The scholar publishes his first volume (448 pages) of Traité de Physiologie médicale (printed in Romania).

1920. In the second volume (732 pages) of Traité de Physiologie médicale (printed by the french editor Vigot) apear for the first time the anti-diabetes effects of the pancreatic fluid.

1921. Appears the third and most important volume (930 pages) of Traité de Physiologie médicale and "The four illnesses and their cure".In the same year he sends four scientific journals to "The Paris Biological Society" (published in Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances et Mémoires de la Société de Biologie de Paris), regarding the deicovery of pancreaine( an early form of insuline). In August, in Archives Internationales de Physiologie (Liège), he publishes the first complete scientific journal regarding the discovery of the first antidiabetes treatment (based on pancreaine)
April 10 1922. The Romanian Ministry of Industry and Commerce releases patent no.6255 named "Pancreaine and the procedure of its manufacture" to dr. Paulescu.
February 1922. Roughly 7-8 months after Paulescu published his pioneering studies into the treatment of diabetes, two young and obscure Canadian lab assistants: F. G. Banting si C. H. Best,working in the pharmaceutical lab of J. J. MacLeod (1876-1935) from the University of Toronto, publish the same findings in the same area.
1923. Despite Paulescu's protest, the Nobel Prize goes to to MacLeod, Banting and Best.The reason behind this monstruous decision is political correctness as between his pharmaceutical studies Paulescu published some nasty articles about jews.Even now, the Paris Academy refuses to give him credt because of those "antisemitic" articles despite the fact that the Mozaic community never branded him an extremist and the nature of his research.
Heck, the NAZI's even killed jews but still get credit for U-Boats and ballistics.

Morale
It doesn't matter who finds it, what matters is the power of the one who claims it.

Next headline "The Wrong Whrights"

[Geoffrey S]

What isn't clear to me is if he was denied the prize because of his anti-semitic views; I know it's the cause of it taking so long to recognise his discovery, but whether that was originally also taken into account?

[Louis VI the Fat]

This is part one of a series of articles Part one? It's part 11 567 894 of the series 'Eastern European grievances, or why it's us who really are the centre of the universe and the founder of European civilisation and how history has denied us our rightful place through the workings of Nazis, Jews, the West and our etnic minorities'.

Even if you're right, it all reeks like that hyper-sensitive, easily insulted and backward looking Eastern European nationalism.
The kind that makes the Polish president demand more influence at an EU summit because of how big Poland would've been without WWII. That makes Serbia commit genocide on Muslims because of a 1389 battle. That made my Hungarian professor, even at a university course, show maps of how big Hungary ought to really be. That ingrains irredentist fantasies in so many people's minds, each country claiming that theirs should rightfully be much bigger than it actually is.
It is a nationalism that concerns itself not with what is, what could be, but what should've been.

Sorry, I know I'm being harsh. I always have this same sort of conversation with Cegorach too. I don't know why, there's something about it that rubs me in the wrong way.
I won't profess to know the history of insulin, for all I know, your guy may really have been denied his importance. Maybe not, maybe, as so often in science, he was one of many working towards a scientific breakthrough, and it wasn't him who was at the right place at the right time.

[Stig]

This is part one of a series of articles regarding lies in the history of science, plagiarism, stupidity and ignorance.
Making an article on Kossina would be great for this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaf_Kossinna

His ideas weren't really stupidity, pity Hitler abused them

[Papewaio]

Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Paulescu) states the following:

Eight months after Paulescu's works were published, doctor Frederick Grant Banting and biochemist John James Richard Macleod from the University of Toronto, Canada, published their paper on the successful use of a pacreatic extract for normalizing blood sugar (glucose) levels (glycemia) in diabetic dogs. Their paper is a mere confirmatory paper, with direct references to Paulescu's article. However, they misquote that article, enunciating that:


"He [Paulescu] states that injections into peripheral veins produce no effect and his experiments show that second injections do not produce such marked effect as the first",

which is exactly the opposite of what Paulescu found out. Later on, Banting said that


"I regret very much that there was an error in our translation of Professor Paulescu's article, I cannot recollect, after this length of time, exactly what happened (...) I do not remember whether we relied on our own poor French or whether we had a translation made. In any case I would like to state how sorry I am for this unfortunate error (...)"

Surprisingly, Banting and Macleod received the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of insulin, while Paulescu's pioneering work was being completely ignored by the scientific and medical community. International recognition for Paulescu's merits as the true discoverer of insulin came only 50 years later.

Professor Ian Murray, an internationally regarded physiologist, was particularly active in working to correct the historical wrong against Paulescu. Murray was a professor of physiology at the Anderson College of Medicine in Glasgow, Scotland, the head of the department of Metabolic Diseases at a leading Glasgow hospital, vice-president of the British Association of Diabetes, and a founding member of the International Diabetes Federation. In an article for a 1971 issue of the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Murray wrote:


"Insufficient recognition has been given to Paulesco, the distinguished Roumanian scientist, who at the time when the Toronto team were commencing their research had already succeeded in extracting the antidiabetic hormone of the pancreas and proving its efficacy in reducing the hyperglycaemia in diabetic dogs."

Furthermore, Murray reported:


"In a recent private communication Professor Tiselius, head of the Nobel Institute, has expressed his personal opinion that Paulesco was equally worthy of the award in 1923."

From the Noble (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/articles/lindsten/index.html) website:

Epilogue

As already mentioned the Nobel Prize to Banting and Macleod has been questioned ever since it was announced. Why was Macleod included, and why was not only Charles Best but also James Collip excluded? Bliss (1982) arrived at the conclusion that the choice made was the best possible. Others are of the opinion that Nicolas C. Paulescu, Joseph von Mering and Oskar Minkowski would have been as worthy, perhaps worthier, Laureates for this prize (e.g. Luft, 1971).

Some additional information that might shed some light on the situation can be obtained from the Nobel Archives. Thus, Paulescu was never nominated; Collip and Best were nominated but not until 1928 and 1950, respectively; von Mering was nominated but only in 1902 and 1906; while Minkowski was nominated in 1902, 1906, 1912 and 1914 as well as in 1924 and 1925. Thus, according to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, none of these candidates could have received the prize in 1923.

So perhaps "the choice made was the best possible." Or would it have been wiser if the Nobel Committee at that time had explored the situation in greater depth rather than proposing to the Medical Faculty of Karolinska Institutet (the decision-making body) that Banting and Macleod be awarded the prize at such an early stage after their discovery?

It seems Paulescu was ineligible on a technicality, that no one nominated him... got to be in it, to win it... I think the speed with which it was awarded was far faster then most Nobel prizes... mind you if they went through the normal process and took ten years, Paulescu would have been dead and again by the statues only a living person can get the award... so he would have been yet again ineligible.