Thudichum: Chemist of the Brain 9781512815603

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THUDICHUM

Chemist of the Brain

THUDICHUM Chemist of the Brain by

David L. Drabkin Professor and Chairman, Department of Biochemistry,

Graduate School of

University of

Medicine,

Pennsylvania

PHILADELPHIA

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

© 1958 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania Published in Great Britain, India, and Pakistan By the Oxford University Press London, Bombay, and Karachi Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 57-11132

Printed in the United States of America American Book-Stratford Press, Inc., New York

To Two, scientist and artist, who, with unusual patience and understanding, waited so long for this book. O T T O ROSENHEIM ( 1 8 7 1 - 1 9 5 5

)·

distinguished steroid chemist, inheritor of Thudichum's mantle; he first brought correct understanding to the structure of the bile acids, relatives of cholesterol, and showed that a different steroid, ergosterol, was the progenitor of vitamin D—a discovery of fundamental significance, commonly accredited to A. Windaus. With characteristic generosity, he put at my disposal many salient facts he had gathered on Thudichum's life, the numerous pieces necessary for reconstructing a credible image of the living man. STELLA

my wife. In so inscribing the book, I feel that I am dedicating it to all that is finest in humanity.

• See Appendix V.

He gave us this definition of Science: " W E HOLD T H A T SYSTEMATIC ENUNCIATION O F M E R E KNOWLEDGE IS DOCTRINE; THAT SCIENCE IS A KIND OF KNOWLEDGE, BUT THAT NOT ALL KNOWLEDGE IS SCIENCE. SCIENCE IS T H A T KIND OF KNOWLEDGE T H E CORRECTNESS AND TRUTH O F WHICH CAN B E PROVED B Y EVIDENCE CONVINCING TO ALL HEALTHY UNDERSTANDINGS. SCIENCE IS A SERIES O F POTENTIALIZED AXIOMS, WHICH WHEN ONCE MASTERED ARE AS EVIDENT AS T H E S I M P L E AXIOMS O F MATHEMATICS, WHICH ARE SAID TO BE SO SELF-EVIDENT AS TO REQUIRE NO PROOF. . . . SCIENCE DID NOT PROGRESS UNTIL I T R E J E C T E D ALL INNATE IDEAS AND PHANTASIES, AND APPLIED ITSELF DEEPLY TO ITS PROPER METHODS, TO OBSERVATION, TO MEDITATION ON T H E CORRELATION OF T H E FORCES, AND TO EXPERIMENT. WORK, WORK AND AGAIN WORK, WERE T H E THREE MAIN FEATURES OF ITS S U C C E S S . " — 1 8 7 5

(from his The Discoveries and Philosophy of His gospel was Scientific "WHEN

Liebig.5)

Medicine:

THE CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF T H E BODY ARE

FIRST

UNDERSTOOD, ONLY THEN WILL T H E CHEMISTRY OF T H E DISEASES ARISING THEREFROM BECOME A CLEAR SCIENCE. FOR THIS PURPOSE NOT ONLY MUST METHODS B E ORIGINATED, BUT A COMBINATION OF ALL DEVELOPED METHODS MUST B E USED. IN THIS REGARD T H E INVESTIGATOR IS LIKE A COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF - , H E MUST KNOW NOT ONLY T H E WHOLE BATTLEFIELD, B U T ALL AGENTS WHICH CAN B E

τ ο PREVAIL UPON IT."—1886 (from his Grundzüge anatomischen und klinischen Chemie. . . .*) DIRECTED

der

He was a Prophet: "ON ACCOUNT OF THE DIFFICULTY O F OBTAINING MATERIAL FOR STUDY, INSTITUTES SHOULD B E SET IN OPERATION IN WHICH NOT ONLY INFECTIOUS DISEASES, BUT THOSE IN WHICH DISEASES OF T H E BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM CAN B E STUDIED WITH A VIEW TO-

7

8

Thudichum:

Chemist of the Brain

WARD ANSWERING CHEMICAL QUESTIONS AS W E L L AS T H E GENERAL INVESTIGATION

OF

THE

CELLULAR

FABRIC."—1901

(from

his

Chemistry of the Brain . . . , Die chemische Konstitution des Gehirns. . . .4)

Foreword

I became aware of Thudichum gradually, as did Drabkin. I first encountered this name in 1913 in a course of physiological chemistry by Fred Conrad Koch [at the University of Chicago]. A t that time Albert Prescott Mathews [at the University of Cincinnati] was writing his textbook. Although the book was not published until two years later, Koch was familiar with the manuscript and made extensive references to Thudichum when he discussed the chemistry of the brain. I believe that Koch's brother had worked on the chemistry of the brain. A t any rate, the name struck me as peculiar and I supposed it to be a latinized form of a germanic name such as Arrhenius, Stettinius, Linnaeus. Then I forgot the name for many years until I married into a family which grew grapes in the San Joaquin valley. Thus I became interested in grapes and the delectable liquid expressed from them. I began to study the process of making wine. One day, in a secondhand bookstore, I found an old book on wine by a Thudichum. T h e name recalled the chemist but I made no connection between the two individuals. Later I found a cookbook by a Thudichum. I checked with the book on wine and was interested that they had been written by the same man. It was only when I read Page's Chemistry of the Brain [see Ref. 24], however, that I realized that the same man had written also a chemistry of the brain. T h e n I sensed that here was a remarkable person and began to collect everything I could find about him. I soon found that there was little available. When I inquired of booksellers they stared blankly until I came one day into Lewis' in Lon9

10

Foreword

don. The clerk told me that there were a dozen requests on file for Thudichum's Chemical Constitution of the Brain but one had not come on the market for many years. He refused to add my name to the list and I went inconsolably away. So matters stood until I returned in 1948 from a junket to Japan for the army to find a pile of catalogues of secondhand books on my desk. With a sigh I pitched them into the wastebasket but, when I started home, my courage failed me and I fished them out. On the elevated traio.my heart suddenly skipped a beat. Staring at me was a quotation of Thudichum, Chemical Constitution of the Brain, $4.50. I slept little that night. At 8:00 o'clock on the following morning I telephoned to New York. In a few days I had the treasure in my hands. When next I saw the bookseller he told me with chagrin that John Fulton [physiologist, medical historian, and bibliographer of Yale] had slept late that morning and the book had been on its way to me when John telephoned. I then began seriously to collect material on Thudichum with the intention of writing a historical essay about him and his work. It was quite natural, therefore, in my capacity of research consultant to the Department of Public Welfare of the State of Illinois, that I should propose that the new biological research laboratory in the State Research Hospital at Galesburg should be named in his honor. The director, Dr. Harold Himwich, concurred and told me that his friend, Dr. David Drabkin, knew more about Thudichum than anyone living. The remainder of the story is told by Dr. Drabkin. His account is a fascinating detective story as well as a biography and appraisal of the man. This is no place for an evaluation of Thudichum and his importance to our understanding of the brain and its functioning. I shall be content to quote an eminent biochemist

Foreword (A. P. Mathews, Physiological Chemistry, A text-book manual for students. W m . Wood, Ν. Y., 1915, p. 506):

11 and

Our knowledge of the chemical constitution of the brain is owing largely to Thudichum, a man of extraordinary care, accuracy, insight and industry, whose abilities were much underrated during his life. For, owing partly to an unusually combative nature, he alienated many of his colleagues and his work was long neglected. There is now, however, no question that he was far in advance of all others in this difficult field and his book, published in 1901, entitled Die chemische Konstitution des Gehirns des Menschen und der Tiere, nach eigenen Forschungen bearbeitet, is a monument to his ability and insight. A German by birth, he lived most of his life in England. He died in 1902. [The correct date of Thudichum's death is 1901.] It is characteristic that Mathews, an Englishman, mentioned only the German translation. T h e work was published originally in English seventeen years earlier. Mathews could not have been ignorant of that fact, b u t probably the earlier English edition was not available to him. [In the third edition of his text, 1920, Mathews does mention T h u d i c h u m ' s first edition of 1884.] T h e measure of the man, T h u d i c h u m , may be appreciated by the foreword to the German edition of his classical monograph, in which he, a physician with a large and successful practice, writes: My medical soul hangs, expressed in poetical language, in ardent affection on the infallibility of the chemical method. It was for me a spiritual guide in the agitated sea of medical conjecture, on which one so often lacks that compass. The chemical method of investigating and managing disease, together with the development of etiology and diagnosis, has convinced me that the healing art, aside from its practice by men of genius and its sway over human minds, is capable of perfection into an exact

12

Foreword

science and of being applied with an almost astronomical precision. For this purpose, however, as in theology the falsification of the records, so also in medicine, to make use of an expression of Darwin, the "false facts" must be rooted out and the scientific bases for judgment by all intelligences must be established. Professor Drabkin deserves the thanks of everyone interested in the brain for his patient assemblage of all the facts about this remarkable man, so misunderstood and neglected all these years. May his labor of love have the success which it merits! PERCIVAL B A I L E Y

Professor of Neurology Neurological Surgery, College of Medicine, University of Illinois

and

Contents

Foreword by Percival Bailey

9

Prologue

21

1. The Man

29

2. His Time and Contemporaries

81

3. His Works

149

Epilogue

183

References

191

Appendixes

209

I. Annotated Bibliography of J. L. W. Thudichum 209 II. Chronological Outline of J. L. W. Thudichum's Life 235 III. On Belated Honors

239

IV. Transcription of Letters

241

V. Otto Rosenheim, F.R.S.

263

Index

275

Illustrations

The following illustrations appear as a group after page 64 FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. Fic. FIG.

1. Exhibit of Thudichumiana. la. Thudichum's original drawings of crystals in urinary sediments. 2. Xylographie illustration showing Thudichum removing a nasal polyp. 3. Honorary degree diploma conferred on Thudichum by the University of Glessen. 4. Title page of Thudichum's monumental classic on the chemistry of the brain. 5. Portrait of Thudichum at age thirty-three. 6. Portrait of Thudichum at age sixty. 7. T h e rarest of Thudichum's portraits showing him at the age of about fifty. 8. A letter from Sir Archibald E. Garrod. 9. A Thudichum letter pasted to the flyleaf of a copy of his text on the urine. 10. Panoramic view of Büdingen. 11. Bridge over the Seemenbach, Büdingen. 12. T h e Rektoratshaus, Büdingen. 13. T h e house in which Thudichum was born. 14. Drawing of the Büdingen Gymnasium as it appeared in Thudichum's day. 15. Portrait of Thudichum's father. 16. Portrait of Thudichum's mother. 17. Photograph of the last home of the Thudichums in Büdingen. 15

16

Illustrations

Fie. 18. Drawing of the Thudichum house in Büdingen. FIG. 19. Thudichum's pencil drawing of a bivouac in the Danish War. FIG. 20. Another Thudichum pencil drawing of a bivouac in the Danish War. FIG. 21. Thudichum's house at 3, Pembroke Road, Kensington, London. FIG. 22. Rear view of house at 3, Pembroke Road, showing location of Thudichum's laboratory. FIG. 23. Thudichum's last home at 11, Pembroke Gardens, Kensington, London. FIG. 24. Thudichum's poem to his daughter Lottie on the occasion of her birthday. FIG. 25. First page of Thudichum's unpublished manuscript, "History of Beer and Ale." FIG. 26. First page of Thudichum's unpublished manuscript, "A Viticulture Experiment in Wales." FIG. 27. First page of Thudichum's unpublished manuscript, "Cape of Good Hope Wines." FIG. 28. Virchow's reply to Thudichum's letter demanding retraction of Hoppe-Seyler's criticism of Thudichum's work on cruentine (hematoporphyrin). FIG. 29. Hoppe-Seyler's letter replying to Thudichum's protest to Virchow. FIG. 30. Virchow's letter to Thudichum rejecting a paper submitted to Virchow's Archiv. The following

illustrations

appear as a group after page 96

FIG. 31. An engraving of one of Robert Boyle's experiments on the effects of deprivation of oxygen. FIG. 32. An engraving of Thudichum's "most valued posses-

Illustrations

FIG.

FIG. FIG.

FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG. FIG.

17

sion"—the combustion apparatus presented to him by Liebig. 33. An old print showing Bunsen's "compound" spectroscope, and a photograph of a modern recording spectrophotometer. 33A. Thudichum's "Spectroscopic Observatory." 34. A letter from Sir Richard Owen to Thudichum in regard to the latter's specimens of Trichina cysts in human and porcine muscle. 35. Illustration of the views of Owen, the last "preevolutionist." 36. Death mask of Justus von Liebig. 37. Liebig's letter of October 10, 1867, to Thudichum. 38. Liebig's letter of June 1, 1868, to Thudichum. 39. Liebig's letter of August 8, 1869, to Thudichum. 40. Liebig's letter of March 15, 1870, to Thudichum. 41. Photographs of Liebig's laboratory at Glessen as it appeared in 1932. 42. Ruskin's letter of March 5, 1869, to Thudichum. 43. A letter by Arthur Gatngee, Thudichum's "archenemy." 44. An announcement of " T h e Seventh International Congress of Applied Chemistry," held in London in 1909.

FIG. 45. Two pages from the original manuscript of Thudichum's Anatomical and Clinical Chemistry. FIG. 46. Specimens of Thudichum's original chemical preparations. FIG. 47. Excerpt from J . F. A. von Esmarch's letter of January 28, 1864, to Thudichum. FIG. 48. Copy of lithograph plate from Thudichum's Treatise on Gall Stones.

18

Illustrations

FIG. 49. Signatures of outstanding scientists on the "petition" to the British Government requesting that a pension be granted to Thudichum's daughters. FIG. 50. An account in the London Daily Mail, July 15, 1931, announcing the Civil Pension granted to Thudichum's daughters. FIG. 51. A photographic composite of the signatures of American subscribers to the Thudichum Fund. FIG. 52. A letter by Thudichum's daughter Lottie, written two months before her death.

THUDICHUM

Chemist of the Brain

Prologue

I

SUSPECT

that I was taken, but in a most pleasant way.

During the hectic Federation meetings in Chicago in April, 1953, my friend Harold E. Himwich arranged for me to meet Professor Percival Bailey, the neurosurgeon, who had just written a remarkable paper, "Search for the Soul." 1 Nearly thirty years ago I had accepted a challenge on a somewhat lower plane, "The Search for a Man," as he had been in flesh and blood and spirit only one quarter of a century before that time. The meeting took place at the head of the staircase on the mezzanine floor of the Conrad Hilton Hotel. It was a nice spot, since fortunately easy chairs were available. Dr. Bailey's first words arrested me: "You are the man who knows more about Thudichum than anyone." I knew, through Harold, that Dr. Bailey was anxious to talk about Thudichum, but I was startled by his phraseology, identical word for word with a message I had received some twenty-seven years earlier from Irvine H. Page, now Research Director of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, with reference to Dr. Otto Rosenheim of London, outstanding steroid chemist. It was he who had most generously supplied me with much of my information, and it was understood between us that I would disclose the accumulated material in appropriate published form. Except for having at long last placed Thudichum's name in its proper perspective in a History of Medicine,2 it was a promise that I had not kept, and that weighed heavily upon me. Percival Bailey's next words were spoken quietly, but with undeniable assurance: "You must get rid of your guilt complex; I shall arrange it." 21

22

Thudichum:

Chemist of the Brain

Was it only last year that I met this neurophysiologist and surgeon, this searcher for the soul? Bailey had suggested to Himwich, his colleague, the appropriateness of dedicating the research building at Galesburg as the "Thudichum Laboratory." But, how had he become interested in Thudichum? As a neurological surgeon he was doubtless familiar with Thudichum's investigations as "Chemist of the Brain." I was certain, however, that his intense interest in this man, reviled and neglected in his lifetime, could not have been aroused by this alone. There was something more personal, more human. There, overlooking the milling crowd in the lobby of the hotel, Dr. Bailey confided that he was an amateur oenologist, which in simple words is a grower of grapes for the making of wine, a neglected beverage, but one with an honorable history. Years ago he had run across a book on wines and viticulture 8 by one J. L. W. Thudichum. Could it be the same man who had written the great classic, the Chemistry of the Brain?* It was then, with an interest in common, that our paths had crossed, and we had "known" each other for many years. Bailey did not know how he had learned of my interest in Thudichum. I was quite convinced—and he was quite certain that such was not the case—that he had written to me, and I myself had told him. We are each content to let this matter rest, nor is it a proper subject for the enlistment of the services of an Investigating Committee, which could hardly be expected to resolve the issue or bring pertinent wisdom to it. As Thudichum himself had said: ". . . not all knowledge is science." 6 I soon received proof of Dr. Bailey's ability to arrange things. Within weeks after our meeting, the following guiltpurging program was before me:

Prologue 1. "Thudichum:

A Neglected

Genius of the Nineteenth

25 Century

—The Man." (The Eleventh Annual David J. Davis Lecture on Medical History, on Wednesday, May 12, 1954).· 2. "Thudichum:

A Neglected

Genius of the Nineteenth

Century

—His Times and Contemporaries." (The Thirtieth Lewis Linn McArthur Lecture of the Frank Billings Foundation of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago, on Thursday, May 13,1954).T 3. "Thudichum:

A Neglected

Genius of the Nineteenth

Century

—His Works." (The Third Thudichum Lecture at the Thudichum Laboratory of the Galesburg State Research Hospital, on Monday, May 17, 1954). 4. "Thudichum—Chemist of the Brain." (Closing lecture of the season at Dr. Ralph W. Gerard's Neuropsychiatrie Seminar at the Neuropsychiatrie Institute of the University of Illinois Medical Center, on Tuesday, May 18, 1954).

I was overwhelmed by the invitation to give this unusual series of lectures, but was aware that the honor was meant for Thudichum. The story of his life would thus be presented in segmented aspects, a challenge in itself, though there was logic in the arrangement: the man, his times and contemporaries, his works, and his culminating accomplishment. My promise to Otto Rosenheim would now be fulfilled. There could be no further postponement. The lectures were given about one year after my first brief encounter with the man who had supplied the necessary catalyst. I regretted that Thudichum's daughters were at too distant a place to be in the audience, and that Dr. Rosenheim, who rightfully should have given these lectures, was not there. I arrived in Chicago on the morning of Tuesday, May 11, the day preceding the David J. Davis lecture. I carried with me a very heavy valisefull of "Thudichumiana," his many books, photographs of himself, his parents, and of the houses

24

Thudichum: Chemist of the Brain

he had lived in, a number of unpublished manuscripts and original drawings, samples of his chemical preparations, and letters to him from Liebig, Virchow, Hoppe-Seyler, Pflüger, Richard Owen, Esmarch, and Ruskin, the great of his day— not all of whom were friends. T h e day was a busy one. We put in a good twelve hours, and I saw the unique Illinois Medical Illustration Studios, under the direction of Professor T o m Jones, at work preparing a beautiful display of the Thudichum memorabilia. Lunch was missed, dinner was delayed till midnight, but the exhibit (see Figs. 1, la) was ready for the lecture. I still do not understand how it was done so well, so quickly, and at such short notice. One of Professor Jones's student assistants did the major job, but the Department's attractive and efficient secretary was also most helpful. As we worked along, she frequently inquired about the spellings of proper German names, etc., always prefacing her question with "Dr. Drabkin, Sir," but suddenly I heard "Dr. Thudichum, Sir . . . oh, excuse me."—I never had been so flattered. But some hours earlier I had given her a briefing on Thudichum and she had remarked in wonder at the variety of the titles of his works. Is it possible that her question was, in effect, not addressed to me, but to another who for a moment had come alive among friends, who were tenderly arranging his manuscripts, letters, and chemical preparations? Before going to bed that night, though the hour was late, I lingered a bit in the lobby of the Conrad Hilton, bought a newspaper, and climbed the stairs to sit a moment in the spot where Percival Bailey, Harold Himwich, and I had sat a year earlier. T h e news headlines were disquieting, quite as disquieting as those in the summer of 1932, when, in my search for the man, I visited Thudichum's birthplace in Büdingen, Germany. I put the newspaper away, chuckled

Prologue

25

to myself about Miss M's remark, and tried to think of some suitable introductory words to use in the lecture, now not many hours away. Was it because I was tired that, at this moment, I unexpectedly relived a presumably irrelevant experience of several years ago, flying to deliver some invited lectures at the University of London? It was a beautiful starlit night. T h e other travelers were asleep, and the plane and I were suspended in limitless space, the vaulted heavens above and the black ocean below. It was the closest I have ever come to complete unawareness of this physical frame, to the existence of a disembodied soul. T h e work and spirit of a man live after him, among his friends and among the inheritors of his knowledge. I am convinced that I did not sit alone at the head of the staircase that night, much as I am sure that another presence attended the meeting in this same place a year ago. On my return to Philadelphia, we had a party one night and among our guests was a colleague, Wilton Krogman, a leading physical anthropologist, big of body and big of mind. He wandered over to the bookshelves and picked u p one of Thudichum's books. He had never heard of Thudichum, and the Chicago lectures came up and the name of Percival Bailey. Krogman asked: "Why in the world didn't you tell me you were going to see Bailey? I owe that man my life." Then, a little later, he made a curious statement: "I'll bet Bailey attended every one of your lectures." Bailey did, and Bill Krogman, alive because of this surgeon's special skills, knew that he had done so. T h e first letter (of 12th October 1929), which I received from Otto Rosenheim in reply to my inquiry, begins: "It is a peculiar coincidence that you should write to me for information about Thudichum's life just at a time when I was considering the publication of an appreciative account of his

26

Thudichum: Chemist of the Brain

scientific work on the occasion of the centenary of his birth . . . I am actually engaged in completing my search for data and supplementing the information I collected during the last twenty years. Only quite recently I found that Mr. Kingzett, a former collaborator of Thudichum, is still alive. I also ascertained the address of a Mr. L. M. Thudichum, presumably a grandson of J . L. W. Thudichum, and hope to receive from these gentlemen in a few days the information I still require." Further inquiry established that L. M. Thudichum was actually a son! My own investigation of this area disclosed that there were probably many distant relatives; in fact, some, connected through marriage to one of Thudichum's cousins, in the vicinity of Philadelphia. But there were no grandchildren to provide a direct line of descent. T o offer an excuse for the delay of twenty years in fulfilling the duty I had assumed would be sheer exhibitionism. This can be said. While some of the words, and, in fact, certain paragraphs of years ago have been retained, this is not the manuscript that would have or could have been written at that time. For one thing, the latitude is broader, since some have now left us who were then living, and who may have been offended by commentaries upon their kin. For a second, it may be hoped that philosophic tolerance has been acquired with age. For a third, the complexion of our times has changed, and with it our thoughts. Perhaps the postponement was wise, in that experience has been gained and words can now be tempered by the sobering second thought. "Time-binding" is a new term for an old idea. Who built better or sailed better, the builders of the pyramids or of the Panama Canal, he who first crossed the Atlantic in a sailboat or he who spanned it in an aeroplane? T h e pioneer in any field will continue to appeal to the adventuresome.

Prologue

27

He who has sailed farthest or plumbed deepest in the vessel of his age, be it a raft or a submarine, his voyage belongs to the ages. I began my "Search for a Man" in 1924. His great work as a pioneer in the chemistry of the brain was then recognized, though not generally. I soon found that he was regarded by those who had some curiosity about him as a "controversial figure," that some had tried to find a photograph of him and had failed even in this. In less than a quarter of one century after his death, memory of this man had been all but erased. THUD1CHUM-CHEMIST OF THE BRAIN was a rather incredible individual, who in his lifetime was the victim of a rather incredible situation. This is the story of my search for the man, a genius neglected by his own century. As a credible likeness of this man emerged, inherent in it were some of the reasons for his neglect. This is not the biography of one man alone, nor the story of one time. It is the struggle of a creative mind for fulfillment. Thudichum, the Multiple Man, was not scientist alone. His life belongs to all, and is treated without the encumbrance of technical details in the body of the book. Appendixes I through IV furnish the necessary documentation of Thudichum's complete bibliography, his curriculum vitae, exchanges of letters between himself and important men of his day such as his teacher Liebig and his "enemy" Hoppe-Seyler, as well as other matters of historical interest. Appendix V has been added as an appreciation of Otto Rosenheim, the rehabilitator of Thudichum. It is not possible to list the very large number of individuals who have been helpful to me. However, I do wish to enter here my thanks to Alfred Newton Richards, who took valuable time from his very busy life to review the manuscript, both carefully and critically. It is a pleasure also

28

Thudichum: Chemist of the Brain

to thank my secretary, Miss Deena Rubenstein, for her technical assistance during the last harried days of readying for publication and her help in the preparation of the index. D. L. D. Philadelphia March 29, 1957

ι. The Man

B

and depth are the parameters of living, determinants of its potential. Breadth negates monotony, creates wide visions, and reaches towards ever-extending horizons. Depth plumbs the unknown; it is the parameter of intensity, unfearful of detail and complication, scornful of the superficial. Breadth or depth creates interesting living; an unashamed pursuit of each and the attainment of both merit the badge of genius. This essay upon "The Man Who Lived Broadly and Deeply" would have wider significance than a belated tribute if the anatomy of genius could be characterized. Genius has been variously defined as to its essentials, and presumably by the quality that the definer believed he himself possessed. Thus we have the clichés: "the capacity for work," "the ability to take infinite pains," and, more recently, "a touch of schizophrenia." In Freud's somewhat overdue post-mortem report entitled "Leonardo da Vinci; a Psychosexual Study of an Infantile Reminiscence," 8 Leonardo, born out of wedlock, is portrayed as a rather confused man. The enigmatic smile of his Mona Lisa or La Gioconda, which is said to be as inscrutable as that of the storied Sphinx, is explained by Freud as a cross between the lascivious smile of the courtesan and the beatific smile of mother-love. The unwed mother, denied by her lover, had lavished both smiles upon the infant and growing child. During their competitive development in the youthful da Vinci, the instinct of curiosity had won the race over the instinct of normal sex expression, leading Leonardo to sublimate his insistent urges in a schizoid, READTH

29

30

Thudichum:

Chemist of the Brain

unsatisfying pursuit of both art and science, with incompleteness in either. In essence, we are asked to believe that Leonardo was not a follower of the rule, "Know Thyself"; his acknowledged genius was an offshoot, a thing apart, which his uninformed ego nearly betrayed. Of course, Leonardo chose neither his mother nor his psychoanalyst. I prefer, yet do not find totally illuminating, the explanation of da Vinci's extraordinary life in the essay "Art and Scientific Thought," β by Martin Johnson, physicist and philosopher. Here Leonardo is pictured as living in an age unprepared to accept science, but quite aware of the symbols of art; this sensitive man consciously uses art, the visual medium, as a form of propaganda to create an atmosphere conducive to scientific awareness. Since during his lifetime his art was appreciated but its scientific message uncomprehended, Leonardo failed of fulfillment and remained frustrated in his objective. If there were some Bureau of Measures in which the assembled qualities of genius could be deposited as a Standard, I would be satisfied with the prototype, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)—essential humanity, not without blemishes, with versatility of endowments plus the qualities needed for their creative application or expression. Hard work, yes, attention to details qualified by nondistraction by them, certainly, but above all Socratic awareness of self, with an indomitable pursuit of an uncommon pattern of living, which invites the stigma of "nonconformist." Yes, the genius must possess the courage to rise above this great social barrier to his outlook; he must be "free," but elect to walk in essential loneliness, a loneliness often bitter, since geniuses remain human. (This was an instinctive viewpoint, later found to be unoriginal. T h e same thought—"frei aber einsam"—was expressed by the celebrated violinist, Joachim, with reference to the meaning of the first four notes, a, f , a, e, of the beauti-

The Man

31

ful theme played by the violin in Brahms' Quartet, Opus 51, Number 2.) The saddest yet most natural quality of genius is that it cannot be fully appreciated in its day—the tax on being different and ahead of one's time is high indeed. I suspect that the living who are recognized as geniuses are not as destined to walk the Elysian paths with Leonardo da Vinci as is a neglected creative intellect of the nineteenth century—Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Thudichum. Death came with kind swiftness to this man on the morning of September 7, 1901. The cool darkness descended as he was pulling on his boots for another active day, with his horse, his dogs, his music, his garden, his electric cautery (see Fig. 2)—which he had designed and used in a flourishing medical practice—and his continuing research in his private chemical laboratory. Death came unbidden, in a rare moment of satisfaction and exhilaration, while he was still "in full possession of his faculties" (words Thudichum himself had used prophetically ®). Years before, he had written to his teacher and friend, Liebig, that he had done the work of three men—a modest estimate (see Legend to Figure 1, with reference to hectographic transcripts of Thudichum's letters). He was spared the agony of slow decline, even as he was spared being a witness of the unhappy circumstances of the later death of one of his influential detractors, Arthur Gamgee.10 During the past weeks he had discussed, as he was wont to do, but now with understanding humor—a rather boisterous, boyish humor was one of his characteristics—the many bitter episodes of his scientific life, with such friends and fellow members of the chemical fraternity as Henry Carr and Henry E. Armstrong. T h e night before had been "high key," with his beloved coterie at the West London Medical-Chirurgical Society of which he was "dean" and a past president.

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He had spent years—his whole active career—under a cloud of calumny; a scientist accused of falsifying.11 Britain's first biochemist; yet he was denied the honor of Fellowship in the Royal Society. His family and close friends may have despaired; often he had had moments of despondency, but buoyancy of spirit led him to fight back again and again, with every mental weapon at his command—a requisite of genius, assertiveness. He spoke English like a German—never fully lost his accent—but he became a master of polemic, whose prime target was big and dangerous game, the powerful scientific editors of his day. He behaved as though he had no intuitive comprehension of a later-day adage: "He who steppeth on mental ingrown toenails causeth unforgivable pain." He had held many a lion by its tail, but never tied a can to a mongrel's. At long last, vindication in his native Germany—a thing he most desired—seemed close at hand. He had been given an honorary degree (see Fig. 3) by the University of Giessen, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his graduation. He had just succeeded, after fifteen years of trying effort, in having his masterwork (see Fig. 4), Die chemische Konstitution des Gehirns des Menschen und der Tiere (The Chemical Constitution of the Brain),* published in Germany. By his express wish his body was cremated at Woking, and his personal letters were destroyed. He was not without honor at his death—a man of his make-up could not be. There were obituary notices in the leading newspapers of England, the Continent, and America.18 There were mourners at his death. A wife mourned a husband; five daughters—none of whom ever married—and two sons mourned a father; the London medical societies mourned a colorful and successful physician, with hands skilled in the removal of nasal polyps; some mourned the passing of an eccentric, engaging intellect with

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broad interests in public health; a few discerning, like Otto von Fürth of Vienna and Hammarsten of Uppsala, sensed his greatness and wrote to the family for Thudichum's books, and these were sent. But there were indeed some, and among them some regarded as the leading biochemists of the d a y followers of Felix Hoppe-Seyler and Richard Maly—who did not wish to keep his memory green, and were perhaps relieved to have this festering thorn withdrawn from their offended cerebral protoplasm. Gamgee, years after Thudichum's death, reacted with such apoplectic violence to the mention of his name that people soon learned to avoid this subject in Gamgee's presence. These and most others did not mourn—for they did not know—the departure of the greatest chemist between Justus von Liebig and Emil Fischer, and one of the truly original minds in biochemistry. Thudichum died in 1901; I first met him in 1924. I was a postmedical fellow in Professor Lafayette B. Mendel's laboratory at Yale. My research was on urochrome, the normal pigment of the urine. Thudichum had gotten there first; sixty years earlier he had christened the pigment.18 T h e original award of the Hastings Gold Medal by the British Medical Association was given to Thudichum for this early work; the medal was presented by Sir Gharles Hastings himself in the Senate Chamber of Cambridge University on August 3, 1864. It was one of the very few official honors Thudichum was destined to receive, and doubtless invited enmity that a "foreigner" should win the prize. This paper cannot be placed among Thudichum's most important contributions, but it does early disclose his independence of thought and interests; it has a "certain" quality, and presages things to come. One becomes interested in something, and the interest is transferred to someone who also had been interested in that

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something. One becomes interested in someone he no longer can meet face to face, but the challenge is there to know this man as he was in flesh and blood and spirit—perhaps because one wishes to understand one's self. Professor Mendel (1872— 1935), a fount of knowledge, is questioned: "So, your curiosity has been aroused by Thudichum; good. He was the Chemist of the Brain, a pioneer in this field, a controversial figure. In Chittenden's course at Sheffield [the first course in physiological chemistry given in our country] we used his Chemical Physiology 14 and Pathology of the Urine 18 as texts. For years I have tried to get a photograph of him for our collection, without success. A former graduate student gave a seminar on Thudichum, but, as I remember, found very little aside from several bibliographic references." Several bibliographic references, indeed! One seeks through days, nights, weeks; one seeks through volumes of discontinued journals, now available in only a few libraries; three years pass. T h e bibliographic list has grown to nearly two hundred items—the complete annotated bibliography is given in Appendix I. Through perverse diligence one even finds a posthumous publication, an "Introduction" to a Household Cookery, authored by a Lizzie Heritage. 19 One pores through every available history of medicine. At last one is found, the only one, Puschmann's Handbuch, edited by Neuberger and Pagel, 18 which mentions Thudichum. And what is it that gained for him, five years after his death, admittance to the company of the élite? T h e chemistry of the brain? No. Thudichum is here memorialized as a surgeon, the originator of a two-stage operation for removal of gallstones, a lifesaving measure in the pre-Listerian era, and, when circumstances require it, at times used to this day. This contribution was made nearly fifty years earlier, when Thudichum was thirty. We find in the bibliography a reference to a paper on the

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pathology of gallstones published in 1859, in which Thudichum devotes only two passing paragraphs to this surgical procedure; he makes no mention of it in his Treatise on Gallstones,1'' published five years later.—Ironical? But this is life. As the bibliography piles up, amazement and even concern grows. Besides the chemistry of the brain—fifty years ahead of its time—there are papers, pioneer work, on the "luteines," 18 pigments originally obtained by Thudichum from the corpora lutea of the ovary, then isolated by him from literally hundreds of other sources, animal as well as plant. Yes, Thudichum is the discoverer of what we know today as the carotenoid pigments, precursors of vitamin A. T h e n there are papers on the bile pigments, on mange, on operations for nasal polyp, on the Turkish bath; there are books—many of them large tomes—on the chemistry of the brain, 4 on gall-stones 17 (which also deserves rating as a classic), on the urine, 15 on wine and viticulture, 8 on cookery,19 on public health.20— Controversial figure! What manner of man was this? A dilettante, a bee, never drinking deeply, but sipping fleetingly from flower to flower? Thudichum's volumes are slowly acquired; read. These are not ordinary texts, compilations of past errors; they are not the writings of a dabbler, nor those of a Talmudist. These books have the undeniable stamp of the scholar, the imprint of original thought. Each volume, like that on gallstones, contains a remarkably exhaustive historical essay as an introduction, in which the subject is reviewed from the earliest times of the Egyptians and the Greeks. But how can a serious man jump from pigments to mange to polyps? T h e bibliography itself discloses that these were not distractions of the moment; all were abiding interests. Thus, there is a reference to mange as early as 1852; another as late as 1894. One learns a good deal later that Thudichum was fainthearted in none of these

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pursuits; when he became preoccupied with the Turkish bath he built his own, probably the first in England, for experimental purposes. He set no limits on his field of exploration; his dedication was as broad as chemical physiology itself, as health, as life. Let us forget the important discoveries, the originality, but only consider the time needed for the writing of these books, in addition to the time for active research and a busy medical practice. This cannot or should not be one man; it must be a firm. Yet during his long career Thudichum had but few technical assistants, paid out of his own pocket: J . A. Wanklyn in 1869; F. J . M. Page and C. G. Stewart in 1872; C. J . Kingzett, from 1873 to 1877, and H. W. Hake, who married Thudichum's wife's younger sister. These men receive occasional mention as co-authors in the bibliography, and in serving their chief they "doubled" as chemists and surgical attendants.—Controversial figure! It must have been disturbing, hence resented, in Thudichum's day—it certainly would be in ours of superspecialization, when we are so narrowly channeled—to be confronted with such breadth of interests and, more, with such width of accomplishment. These works had no right to be anything but superficial. Why place one's trust in the mouthings of this maverick, this Faust? Thus, with reference to the structures assigned by Thudichum to some of the new compounds isolated by him from the brain, Gamgee's caustic "one might as well supply a formula for bread and butter"; 1 0 Hoppe-Seyler's "patent falsification" ("offenbar Falsches"); 11 Maly's "Mr. Thudichum's dilettantism remains uncontrolled, an epidemic plague for physiological chemistry" ("Herr Thudichum's dilettantismus noch fortfährt, eine Landplage für die physiologischen Chemie zu sein" " ) . Strong words these—the Queensberry Rules were still

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young. We do this sort of thing so much better today; we might say: "We suspect that the gentleman was a bit careless." But the intent is the same; the effect on the "gentleman" is the same. One seeks farther; to the bibliography are added the reviews, the criticisms, the replies. One finds, with satisfaction, that Thudichum did not take this lying down; he would have been less than a man if he had. His genius was not "essentially impersonal," a quality ascribed to the highest types of mankind by Renan. He fought back, with Jovian wrath. This struggle for recognition continued throughout his career; it, too, was consuming of time. 4 · 2 1 · 2 1 One has reached the point of understanding the setting somewhat better. Here is a man of great accomplishments, unrecognized in his day, of interests so broad as to be held suspect. Here is a talented personality, so positive as to get one's dander up. Here, perhaps, is a "displaced person," a foreigner, gaining a foothold in inclement soil. This is the picture suggested by the accumulated bibliographic information. But the bibliography fails to reveal this man as he was in flesh and blood and spirit. One becomes convinced of the futility of deciphering this man's life from the palimpsest of his publications. True, some of the references were not available in our country; these could be helpful. There is Thudichum's medical thesis of 1851 at the University of Giessen on "Fractures of the Upper End of the Humerus"— strange subject for a chemist. German theses contain a brief history of one's forebears, the "Lebenslauf." Later, at Giessen, one holds a copy of this thesis in his hand, but there is no "Lebenslauf." There is the book on public health, Briefe über öffentliche Gesundheitspflege,20 published in 1898, one of Thudichum's last publications. One is then unaware that this book contains the missing photographs; two of them! (See Figs. 5, 6.) One has searched so far afield that one does

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not then know that, virtually within arm's reach, stored for years in an attic of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine, is a neglected collection of old photographs, gathered by a distinguished Professor of Medicine, Dr. James Tyson, and, in this dusty pile, a third missing photograph (see Fig. 7) of Thudichum! (Pennsylvania's Medical School is the oldest in the land; its attics are fascinating.) T w o provocative references 23 to publications on sewage purification had turned up, not by J. L. W. Thudichum, but by one George T h u d i c h u m of London. Was this a son, who had followed some of his father's interests? It is scarcely more than a generation since Thudichum's death; there must be someone living who has known this man. One now adopts the rather high-handed procedure of writing to perfectly blameless strangers for information. One even applies to a London newspaper, and is ignored, probably regarded as meddlesome or worse by this modern omnibus of news. Would this letter have received the same consideration if it had intimated that the inquiry was about one who had had for a Victorian astonishingly non-Victorian notions? One letter was to a remarkable person, then in his nineties, Sir Archibald E. Garrod, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, famous for his concept of "inborn errors of metabolism," now at times referred to as "inherited metabolic abnormality," or "biochemical lesions." Sir Archibald replied promptly in beautiful longhand. This note (see Fig. 8) was the first dim light of daybreak, prophetic of the dawn. At last someone who had known Thudichum, if only casually. T h e information supplied was scanty, but it was something: "I knew him slightly and [he] was always pleasant to me, presumably because I retained the name urochrome [for the urinary pigment]—had I not done so!! . . . H e is not in the Dictionary of National Biography, which I have here." And

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a postscript: "He was a big man, of Teutonic appearance, with a beard." Then at about this time my friend Charles G. Johnston, the surgeon, came to the laboratory one morning, carrying a book: "Here, you and your Thudichum," and he handed me the 1877 edition of the Pathology of the Urine, and pasted to its front flyleaf a letter in Thudichum's hand to R. Hingston-Fox, a London urologist of that day. This personal letter (see Fig. 9) was the best find yet: "Please see that all corrections are carefully carried out, to prevent misunderstanding. The teachings in Textbooks on this subject are a perfect scandal." Garrod's double exclamation points and Thudichum's own letter make one a bit uneasy. What manner of man was this? A personality defect—was that his trouble? At this stage, one is stymied. Two more years pass. The curtain has been too effectively drawn. A colleague, Florian Cajori, is leaving for a Sabbatical year in England. One is no longer quite reasonable; hence one does not hesitate to ask him to inquire about Thudichum. Cajori gathers no crumbs of comfort in England but on the way home he stops over in Munich, and there meets a mutual friend, Irvine H. Page, a future author of a Chemistry of the Brain,2* then working with Richard Willstätter. And from Page the message: "Otto Rosenheim of the National Institute for Medical Research, London, knows more about Thudichum than anyone." Some years after Thudichum's death, Rosenheim was in "on the kill" of Protagon;26 it was he who finally established the nonexistence of this so-called entity in brain tissue, and fully justified the correctness of Thudichum's similar, insistent stand in the long-drawn-out and bitter Protagon Controversy. Thus had arisen Rosenheim's interest in this stormy petrel of an earlier scientific day, and for some twenty years he had been gathering information on Thudichum's life. Rosenheim, too,

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Thudichum: Chemist of the Brain

had been interested in something, and in his case also the interest had been transferred to someone who had been interested in that something. We had started at different times and at different places in geography and thought—the pigment of the urine and the chemistry of the brain—but we had converged upon Thudichum, the man. Letters cross the sea; Rosenheim makes all his finds available. One now is content to drop the exciting role of detective, and play Dr. Watson to a gifted Sherlock Holmes. But perhaps Watson has his points, for within three months after the first letter Holmes uncovers one valuable bit of information after another: Thudichum's children are still alive. T h e five daughters still live at 11, Pembroke Gardens, Kensington, London, where Thudichum did much of his writing and carried on his medical practice and later researches. A gift package from Marie Thudichum arrives, bearing the quaint inscription: "Of no importance except to sender and recipient." It contains a book, the existence of which was unsuspected, a two-hundred-page history of the family 2 6 published in 1893 by Thudichum's younger brother, Friedrich, Professor of Law at Tübingen. Needless to say, this family chronicle proves invaluable in furnishing an account of Thudichum's forebears and his early life. Hake and Kingzett are still alive; Hake unfortunately is mortally ill and cannot be questioned, but the results of an interview with Kingzett are soon sent by Rosenheim, together with copies of prized letters in the family's possession, several original drawings, and a number of original manuscripts, one of them unpublished, a History of Beer. Scarcely does the excitement of these finds wear off when a letter brings the news of a remarkable discovery. In the stable of Thudichum's home, where they were stored, Rosenheim comes upon Thudichum's notebooks and some three hundred carefully labeled specimen bottles con-

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tainiiig Thudichum's chemical preparations, most of them beautifully crystalline and pure. Several of the important preparations are tested by Rosenheim and found to agree closely with Thudichum's own analytical results—final vindication at long lastl The chemical structures of the educts from brain tissue had been deduced correctly. They were not "formulas for bread and butter." Many of the specimens are now properly housed as a tribute and memorial to their "first biochemist" at the National Institute for Medical Research.27· 27t Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins (Nobel Laureate) requested some specimens for another exhibit at Cambridge, as did Professor Klenk for his Institution in Germany (see Appendix V). The man is beginning to emerge, but it is still necessary to retrace his steps, to see those who love him and hold his memory dear, to be in the places that had been close to him. The pilgrimage is made in the summer of 1932. The world has just passed through uneasy times, and it is on the threshold of still uneasier ones. There are minor riots and some shooting in Berlin, but there are also quiet islands in large cities and there are small towns, not on the main arteries of travel and which even curious tourists rarely visit, where life goes on in the setting and tempo of a bygone day. It is in such oases that the past, impossible of recapture, can at least be sensed. BÜDINGEN

August, 1829, to September, 1849 When one visits in the vicinity of Frankfurt, it is easy to travel thirty miles north to the university town of Glessen, where the great Liebig worked and founded a chemical dynasty. One may even go fifteen miles farther north to Marburg, another university town, with a publicized thousand-

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year-old rose brier. Or, from Frankfurt one may journey forty-seven miles south and enter romantic Heidelberg. But Büdingen, which reposes on a low plateau twenty-two miles northeast of Frankfurt and twenty-seven miles southeast of Giessen, is off the track. In 1932 it is a quiet town with a stationary population of some 3,500 people. The uneasiness felt in Berlin, Munich, and Frankfurt has not yet penetrated here. Just outside the walls of the old town there is a single inn where one may stay. Once there may have been an incipient "Business Bureau" in the town, for there is a printed leaflet about "die Perle aus dem Mittelalter," about the "Oberhessische Rothenburg," but one sees no other visitors, no other "foreigners." The town has the character of a stage set, with its preserved medieval walls, its gates and moats, its fifteenthand sixteenth-century houses, its narrow cobbled streets and inner courts glimpsed through stone archways, its castle and hilly vineyard, the Pfaffenwald (Pope's Wood), and the unruffled geese, lazy on its lazy meandering stream, the Seemenbach (see Figs. 10, 11). It is unspoiled, idyllic, more lovely than Rothenburg. It is a town meant for a pilgrimage. The same emotion is experienced here as in an Etruscan-built hill town, perched above the blue-hazed, fertile Umbrian plain, Assisi, where Saint Francis was born, with its thirteenth-century cathedral and Giotto frescoes. In Assisi it is hard not to believe what those who live there tell you, that Cimabue discovered Giotto as an infant drawing a sheep on a pebble. It does not matter that Goethe turned his back on the cathedral built layer on layer into the side of the hill, and admired Tather a pagan shrine higher up in the town square, the Roman Temple of Minerva, more symbolic of the libertine poet Propertius, who also was born here and who gave himself as fully to the appetites of the flesh as St. Francis did to the glorification of the spirit. Those who live here absorb the

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identity of their ancient dwellings; they move in the tempo demanded by the steep, cobbled streets. They sing, as their ancestors sang, as they go to work in the morning in the olive groves and grape arbors and as they return in the evening, and their songs still echo St. Francis' poetic chant, his "Canticle of the Sun." T h e sensitive will tarry in such places and delay their parting, their re-entry into the world, as long as they can. These are islands that have preserved the essence of the past. One enters through the gate of the town and first visits Herr Dekan August Schäffer, a long, thin man, at 4 Kirchgasse, built in 1562. Deacon Schäffer is the successor of Thudichum's father, Dr. Georg Thudichum, in the position of minister to the Reformed Lutheran Church. T h e baptismal records are preserved from 1630 on! And here one finds the entry: Ludwig Johann Wilhelm Thudichum, geboren 27. August 1829, Abends um 6 Uhr, getauft am 20. September. Taufpaten waren: 1) Herr Johann Caspar Baist, Landrat des Bezirks Grünberg 2) Herr Johann Wilhelm von Baumer, Königlich Bayrischer Fortsmeister zu Gold-Kronach im Obermainkreis und 3) Herr Johann Ludwig Thudichum, geistlicher Inspektor des Bezirks Rödelheim. Baist was his maternal grandfather, but he was christened Ludwig after his uncle, the last mentioned godfather in the church record. Grandfather Baist lovingly referred to him in an early letter as "the little Louis," but most others close to him called him Ludwig; Thudichum abhorred the anglicized Lewis or Louis or John Louis, occasionally used, but not by those who knew him well. T h e arrangement of names, Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Thudichum, which appears in his publications, is presumably a compromise that he himself accepted.

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One does not choose one's name; it can be a source of pride or resentment. Thudichum departed from Eden in 1853, and set foot on the soil of England. He became a naturalized British subject six years later, but he insisted on the retention of the "foreign" name Ludwig. In his continuous struggle for recognition he may have come to resent his own foreignness, his German accent. The Freudians would pounce upon this preference for Ludwig as revealing of ambivalence. The undesirable, uncomfortable name Ludwig is not renounced; it becomes the symbol of the struggle, the source of energy. But it also could be that Ludwig was redolent of that which for him was most pleasant in the climate of Eden, and it could be that there was in him great pride and love of family. The family Thudichum, through a distant relationship, had some of the romantic Schiller blood in its veins, not bad blood at all, and it stemmed from the Württemberg town of Marbach on the Neckar, the birthplace of the poet. Before the sacking of the town in 1693 by the French, one Ulrich Dudichumb, a cooper, lived there, then a Johann Dudichumb, a clothmaker, then a Johann Georg, two Johann Wilhelms, and finally a definitely traced forebear, the great, great-grandfather, listed in the Marbach Churchbook of 1716 as Johann Michael Dudichumb, a master coppersmith. In 1724 Johann Michael changed his surname to Thudichum, and thereby nicely cloaked its earthy origin from the old German Du dich umb, literally translatable into "turn thyself about," thence "bestir yourself," "get to work," a wonderful admonition and motto, which the Thudichums followed. From this family that worked with its hands was destined to arise a scholar and authority in the epic verse and prose of ancient Greece and his three sons, a distinguished Professor of Law and later Vice-Chancellor at one of the great German Universities, a leading schoolmaster, founder of a famous boys' school in

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Geneva, La Châtelaine, and a scientific genius, far in advance of his times. As one sips tea with the Schäffers, one learns that the deacon is well acquainted with the stories contained in the Family History of Thudichum's undoubted talent as a boy in amateur theatricals and, especially, with the stir created by a budding writer's first publication in the Büdinger Wochenblatt of 1846. 3β T h e seventeen-year-old Ludwig wrote such a witty and lively account of Büdingen's yearly "Marksmen Festival" at Whitsuntide that Herr Reiming, the publisher of the weekly, offered him the editorship. T h e offer presumably failed to get parental blessing. Büdingen lost an editor, and the University of Giessen shortly gained a student. Thudichum traveled to Giessen by stagecoach, took a room at Baker Ebel's house, and matriculated in medicine in the summer semester of 1847. T h e town of Büdingen is small, like a stage set, and every part of the stage has been intimately trod by Ludwig, the eldest, his brothers, Friedrich Wolfgang Karl and Karl Friedrich Wilhelm, his sisters, Marie Charlotte Luise Wilhelmine, Ottilie Emma Hilda and Luise Amalie, and Ludwig's close friends, Heinrich Warnery and Adolf Wegelin. Warnery was a fellow student of medicine at Giessen, and returned to Büdingen, where he established his practice. Wegelin, a younger friend, matriculated in medicine at Heidelberg in 1848. Here in the usually limpid Seemenbach which, swollen with spring freshets, occasionally overflowed its banks as on a historic day of 18 January, 1757, and in the deeper Lahn, all the children became expert swimmers and on these streams, turned to smooth ice in winter, Ludwig became a fine figure skater. Here at 15 Schlossgasse is an attractive house (see Fig. 12) erected in 1560, with a fine Erker (bow-window). T h i s is the

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old Rektoratshaus, occupied by the Thudichums from 1830 to 1833. Through an arched stone gateway some paces beyond the Rektoratshaus or through another entry in back of 9 Schlossgasse, formerly the Lutherische Hof, one enters a small court, hens scatter, and here stands the old Pfarrhaus (see Fig. 13) where Thudichum was born. One keeps his tolerant wife waiting while tripod and camera are set; then the stroll is resumed to the new Büdingen Gymnasium (see Fig. 14) where hangs the portrait of Thudichum's father (see Fig. 15), Doctor of Philosophy Georg Thudichum, for many years the leading minister of the town, as well as Director and Principal of the Gymnasium. T h e portrait was painted by one Engel (for whom Liebig had sat) in 1843 in Georg Thudichum's forty-ninth year—a handsome man, with a gentle, peaceful face and the look of a scholar. Büdingen suited this man though, if driven by less noble ambitions, he could have had a pulpit in a large city, with a wider following and more of the world's applause and goods. At the age of thirty-three he married a lovely lady, eleven years his junior, Friederike Baist, daughter of a fairly well-to-do provincial Justice of the Peace. Friederike, too, loved Büdingen, and she bore Georg six children. Her portrait (see Fig. 16) also was executed by the same artist in 1843. Five years later, when she was forty-three, she visited her son at Giessen, where he was now a sophomore medic and a member of the Hessian Corps. Ludwig could not help being proud in presenting his very young-looking mother, with her smooth black hair parted in the middle and her clear, unlined face, to his admiring and frankly ogling corps brethren. A few turns from the Gymnasium and one comes to the edge of the Pfaffenwald, formerly the medieval estate of the overlord of the whole area, the Prince (Fürst) von Ysenburg and held in Thudichum's day by a descendant, Graf Georg

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von Ysenberg, Georg Thudichum's benefactor. In this lovely park one sees through an avenue of chestnut trees a house of later vintage than the Pfarrhaus and Rektoratshaus. It is a fairly large house, beautifully situated (see Figs. 17, 18) and designed for living on a modestly elegant scale; at one time the Orphanage, later the home of Dr. Westernacher and, in 1833, acquired from the latter by Georg Thudichum, who rented out the Rektoratshaus and moved his enlarging family to these more spacious quarters. Georg and Büdingen were good for each other. In 1834 he bought a hilly tract of ground directly behind the house at the foot of the Pope's Hill (Pfaffenberg). Hours of daily toil were given to this plot by Georg and Friederike and later by all the children and, under their tender care, the land blossomed into a terraced garden, with a variety of fruit and nut trees and with vintage grapes, which yielded a wine as good as any from the vineyards on the Rhenish slopes.—"Du dich umbi" Even the hobby became a dedicated task. Georg's bibliography has fifty-nine references;26 the final, published posthumously, as "the last graceful bequest of his always active Muse" by his son, Professor Dr. Friedrich Wolfgang Karl von Thudichum, bears the title: Traube und Wein in der Kulturgeschichte. Thudichum's own large Treatise on the Origin, Nature and Varieties of Wine 8 (co-authored by August Dupré, his wife's younger brother) was published in 1872, nine years before his father's little book, but the early source of a lifelong interest and inspiration is evident. The house had a study in which Georg made his scholarly translations of the tragedies of Sophocles, much esteemed in their day, but in which he also found time to write such items as the Büdinger Gesangbuch, containing some two hundred Lieder. In this room the Classic and the Romantic, Song and Wine, were wed, a marriage proclaimed by three

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sculptured busts, a copy of the colossal bust of Zeus by Phidias, and the large heads of Goethe and Schiller. These symbols were for the children ingredients of the growing-up process, much as the garden was. All who entered this house and, particularly, this room, became aware of devotion to the higher arts and to service. After Georg's death in 1873, Friederike lovingly preserved his study as a "quiet temple," in which the spirit of the man lingered. A piano with a "noble tone" was acquired in 1833. Georg was an amateur guitarist, and the whole family learned music, not only the Büdinger Lieder, but Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. They regularly joined together in harmonious song at home, and were in constant demand for recitals at local parties and gatherings. Friedrich generously states in the Family Chronicle that in all these activities the most apt was Ludwig. He became an excellent pianist, and indeed just missed becoming a professional singer. During his first year at Glessen, Ludwig continued his vocal training under the then famous Italian tenor, Mario. He made such rapid progress that Mario asked him to join in a duo concert at the neighboring town of Marburg. The official program listed the singers as Monsignore Mario and Monsignore Fiorentino. Several ladies from Giessen attended this concert, and "would have sworn that the engaging Monsignore Fiorentino was a young Giessen student had he not had such mastery of Italian and sung so beautifully." Ah well, it would have been delightful to continue as Monsignore Fiorentino, but, believe it or not, there was at the time more urgently beckoning romance in vistas being opened up by Professors T . L. W. von Bischoff in anatomy and physiology and Liebig in chemistry. Later, a fine grand piano stood in the parlor of 11, Pembroke Gardens, London, and this same love of song was handed down to his own children. Much later his sixth child,

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Charlotte Ottilie, who alone of all the children resembled h i m in physical appearance—the others took after their mother—became the leading English oratorio singer of her generation. She won special acclaim for her Rebecca in Sullivan's Ivanhoe. T h u d i c h u m reveled in his daughter's success, and shared the disappointment of her unenthusiastically received American tour, which presumably was mismanaged by a booking agent. Riches never came to T h u d i c h u m ' s father, b u t his scholarship and broad interests brought distinguished people to his door; they came and became friends. Among such visitors was renowned Justus von Liebig, on one occasion in 1846. Georg, t h e Greek savant, had on his own digested Liebig's Animal Chemistry when it first appeared in 1842, and several years later had attended some of his lectures at Glessen. H e wrote this in his diary: In Liebig's case the fullness and presence of knowledge appear equal: lucidly clear, of characteristic simplicity, without any rhetoric; he is truly the personification of chemistry. A very earnest face, with a long, fine nose, deep eyes, with a somewhat distressed look. The stamp of a distinguished man. The whole hour [was] highly absorbing and instructive. . . . Liebig's Chemical Letters made me captive for many days. Without doubt chemistry will bring new light to agriculture and to physiology. Perhaps also to medicine? At the best, if the true principles of life were known, the ancient diseases which have plagued man could be prevented.—However, I may add that, so far as I can see, Liebig has made no weighty new discovery; his great strength lies in his critical approach and his contribution of method. This last entry is most revealing. Georg T h u d i c h u m was quite a man. H e frankly revered the eminent and respected their attainments, b u t it was n o slavish reverence. T h e right of judgment, of critical assessment, was reserved. T h i s trait

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was inherited by Ludwig, and it gained strength in passage from father to son. At a hypothetical level all may accept the idea that constructive criticism is valuable. T o deny a scientist this critical faculty and urge to independent, creative thinking appears inconceivable. Yet to accept criticism objectively is the mark of the really great. Ludwig Thudichum'smorality led him to speak out against authority. He had still to learn that moral and polite behavior are not necessarily synonymous, that most "authorities," insecure in their prominence, resent criticism, that it is largely these who man the juries, distribute the prizes, and set the rules for playing the game. Thudichum spent his last year at Heidelberg, where he matriculated on May 11, 1850; then returned to Glessen for his degree. It was not unusual to get your medical training at more than one institution—and a good custom it was. Among his fellow students at Heidelberg was one August Eck and one Theodor Boveri and among the teachers were Henle in histology and physiology, Gmelin in chemistry, Tiedemann in medicine, Ghelins in surgery. Later Kirchoff, Bunsen, Kekule, and Kussmaul joined the faculty. As a neighboring alumnus Thudichum kept close contact with the brilliant new professors. Heidelberg held more than romance. Thus, Thudichum was exposed to two faculty groups, with perhaps different viewpoints. His academic ancestry, through Liebig, may be traced to Lavoisier and, through Henle, to Johannes Müller. He learned the combustion techniques of elementary chemical analysis from Liebig at Glessen and applied chemical spectroscopy and spectrophotometry from their originator, Bunsen, at Heidelberg. It was here that Thudichum first exhibited his independence of thought, in writing a medal-winning essay on "Urea in the Amniotic Fluid"; 2 · his own researches made him contest Wöhler's view that urea was constantly present in this fluid.

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The great Wöhler did not take offense at this honest difference in opinion, but Thudichum had yet to meet Liebreich, Hoppe-Seyler, Maly, and Gamgee, the guardians of the Academy. The circumstances of Liebig's visit to Büdingen are of interest. Georg Thudichum was "sold" on the health-giving properties of the fine wine he produced, but he also became convinced that *the waters of Büdingen possessed special virtues. He had dicovered a local saline spring. Samples of its water had been sent to Liebig for analysis; then the great chemist came in person. For various reasons, Liebig advised the abandonment of the project, but he did state: "The whole of Büdingen is a park," and, with reference to Georg's spot, "a garden the like of which is not to be found even in England." Georg took Liebig's advice, and Büdingen was saved from becoming a spa. Later, when Georg was troubled by the thought of having wasted some of Liebig's valuable time, he nevertheless felt that a worthwhile service for Büdingen had been rendered through the illustrious man's sincere admiration and warm praise of the garden. Liebig handled himself masterfully in this situation. Is it any wonder that in later years Georg's son, Ludwig, grew the best dahlias in London? The Duprés, Charlotte, bom June 30, 1828, at Soden b. Salmünster, and her brothers, Frédéric W. and August (later the older and younger Doctors Dupré, who would successively hold the post of Lecturer in Chemistry and Toxicology at the Westminster Hospital Medical School), were third cousins of the Thudichums. They were descendants of Cornelius Dupré, Huguenot, who had left France in 1685, distinguished himself in the army of Prince Eugene, and settled in the Palatinate. In 1848 the family lived in the then Free Imperial City of Frankfurt on the Main, of which the father,

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J. F. Dupré, was a merchant and citizen. With a letter of introduction, Ludwig, now nineteen, went to visit these cousins whom he had never seen. T h e Dupré boys and Ludwig were co-spirits; they struck it off at once. Charlotte, "small and warm, with dark eyes and black hair, French-like," looked upon the handsome, talented visitor, nearly a year her junior, and Ludwig, who had come for a day, stayed for two weeks. These two saw in each other that which made them partners for life. Six years of maturing, of turmoil and disappointment elapsed before their marriage in London, on May 15, 1854, but from their first meeting this small woman was the refuge of the big man. She and her brothers preceded Ludwig to London, and were there to welcome the exile. Charlotte had chosen her career, and from some ancient fount she drew the strength and knowledge for it, and the skills required to make a happy home for this impetuous man of hers, who would often need the balm that soothes the mental wound. Charlotte outlived her husband by some fifteen years. She was eighty-seven when she died in 1915, with the world again in upheaval. Of their long courtship we have as mementos two original pencil drawings made by Ludwig and sent to Charlotte, and fondly preserved by her, then by their children, of bivouacs (see Figs. 19, 20) in the "Danish War," in which Thudichum served as a volunteer surgeon in the Schleswig-Holstein Army. We have also a delightful anecdote from the Family Chronicle 29 of Charlotte's first visit to Büdingen. On a second occasion, in September 1849, Thusnelde again showed up in Büdingen. At 7 in the evening Ludwig's newly beloved (Neuverlobte), Charlotte Dupré, arrived by stagecoach (Postwagen) from Giessen to meet her future in-laws. The old folks and the children were seated at the table, and Charlotte, like a lady of affairs, was recounting the experiences and obser-

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vations of her trip. At this moment the door opened, and in trotted the above labeled woman [Thusnelde], Madame Major Spillner, and in her wake her fifteen-year-old son. After she went her way and it was apparent our mother was sadly annoyed that father's former flame should come [so informally] to the house, Karl [Thudichum's youngest brother, then sixteen] sprang up and shouted: "By thunderl if she had been our mother." Wherewith the incident ended cheerfully. Every garden of Eden has its Lilith. Luise, one of three daughters of Professor Christian G. Butte of Giessen, and Georg met in 1816. Georg and his closest friend, Karl Ebenau, and, indeed, all their friends were smitten by Luise's blonde beauty. Karl in letters to Georg uses these words: "A maiden of rare beauty and charm . . . of the happiest proportions and naturally gracious carriage . . . long blonde hair . . . eyes of light blue . . . delicate and fine and yet a powerfully drawn profile. . . ." In short, "The most beautiful female on earth." Karl—and Georg—were hard hit; so hard hit, they rechristened her "Thusnelde." But this female paragon was not for Georg; her ample charms needed a larger setting than a rector's house in Büdingen. She married Major Spillner. Her "proportions" increased considerably with age.28 Gone were the "swan's neck" and delicate chin, the reedlike posture, but she retained the memories of her conquests, and twice visited Büdingen condescendingly to see how her former lover was getting on, perhaps to see if she was still Lilith, perhaps to see what she had missed. For Charlotte, this was quite an introduction to the Thudichums. She and Ludwig would often chuckle over the episode in the years to come. And there was another (apocryphal though it may seem in connection with a chemist) that Friedrich took a special delight in telling: Ludwig's first "successful" experiment—fire-

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works of his own design, which set fire to an attic room and blew out one of its walls. If one can deduce correctly from the dark-haired ladies they married, the son inherited his tastes from the father. But, regretfully, no lurking Brunhilde could be found in Ludwig's background. At the time he met Charlotte he also came to know another small, dark, fascinating lady, whose appearance belied her sixty-three years; she had been Goethe's mistress and had also loved Beethoven. Years later there were attractive women of the world and among them the diva, Marie Broma, who were grateful patients of the then leading otolaryngologist of London. This specialty requires rather frequent visits. The doctor-patient relationship and more, the relationship of a brilliant intellect, withal a romantic, and a celebrated prima donna could add spice to a biography. And Thudichum had a "manner" with his patients, but there it apparently ended.—This man of multiple talents presumably had limitations. (See Bibliographic Ref. 142.) The busts of Goethe and Schiller were but symbols; the visit of Liebig but an interlude. These have an influence, but the environment of genius must provide more enduring fare —the words and thoughts, ideas frequently expressed and debated. T h e important medical and scientific achievements in Germany of this period were co-linked with the extraordinary liberalism of its great Universities. T o quote Graham Lusk: 80 "Goethe's patron, Grand Duke Karl August, had said in 1819, 'Freedom, of opinion and freedom of teaching must be retained in all universities, for truth is discovered by open conflict of opinions, and a scholar must be protected from reliance on authority and must be given independence.' Goethe further interprets this statement by saying that conflict of opinion does not determine truth but states the problem to be solved." It was in this spirit of stating the problem

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to be solved that the house of Georg Thudichum was a freq u e n t forum for debate and intellectual dispute. A debate on a fundamental level was waged for many years between Georg and his bosom friend, Karl Ebenau, who died untimely in 1843 in his forty-fifth year. Georg spent two years writing an unpublished biography 26 of this otherwise unsung freethinker. Ebenau was ordained in 1821, but never preached; interested, like Georg, in the classics, he was a librarian (Secretary of the Royal Library at Darmstadt) in his later years. T h e deep friendship of these two, whose philosophic outlooks were irreconcilable, was remarkable. Georg, acknowledged classical scholar, was nevertheless orthodox in his religious views, a follower of Schleiermacher's dogma. In notes on David F. Strauss's most scholarly but destructive Lije of Jesus (which appeared in 1835-36) Georg is quite certain that rational explanations of the miracles will be forthcoming, as knowledge is gained. For Georg, "Goethe is not enough." Ebenau had a humanistic concept of religion, expressed forcefully in a letter of 1840: M "The present belief that the whole truth must be sought is worthless; it is better to just go halfway and content oneself with approximate ideas. Religion must have a poetic basis, if it is to survive. Thus, God as the father is in itself a poetic conception." Ludwig and the other Thudichum children were not constrained to take sides in these divergent views. Indeed, in his later life, "though he consented to have his children baptised," Ludwig was "not a church-goer. His religion was that of a sane man—one who does not talk about it. He never interfered with the religious views of others" (Marie Thudichum). In these matters presumably the friend Karl Ebenau exerted the more dominant influence. In other matters, too, Georg's view did not prevail. He could not bring himself to support the revolutionary move-

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ment of 1848. On the other hand, Georg's brother Ludwig, after whom Thudichum was named, was an outspoken liberal, and to his own sorrow entered politics, which necessarily clashed with his duties as Minister in the neighboring town of Rödelheim. 38 Young Ludwig and his cousin, Hermann (later a practising surgeon), became officially identified as Revolutionists. 26 As we know, for all the justice on its side this movement to establish a democracy in Germany was unsuccessful, and most of the well-intentioned, impetuous young and older men associated with it were destined to pay the price for their nonconformity. Many like Thudichum found the climate of the aftermath unpropitious, and migrated to other lands; he, to Queen Victoria's London. T H E PARLOR AT 1 1 , P E M B R O K E GARDENS

1876 to September 7, 1901 (Visit of August 20, 1932) For London it was an incredibly hot August. One wanders to the sites of Thudichum's former dwelling places, whose location was gleaned by chance from some of his early papers. First, in 1854, there was 34, Keppel Street, Russell Square; now torn down to make way for a new building of the University of London. (At 30, Keppel Street, is the Institute of Chemistry for Great Britain and Ireland). Somewhat later there was 9, Woburn Place; just demolished. Then 65, South Audley Street, where Thudichum once had his consultation rooms. Later still, a most elegant house, at 3, Pembroke Road (Terrace), Kensington (see Fig. 21). Here and in an adjoining old greenhouse no longer in existence (see Fig. 22) Thudichum did much of his research. T h e house is now occupied by Lord Boyd Merriman, K.C.B, and member of Parliament, and his gracious Lady, who most kindly con-

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sented to having the house photographed. But the interior of this house has been completely altered. It has now assumed the character appropriate to its present occupants, and even the exterior has been brightly polished to mask the hint of former times. The once flourishing garden has succumbed to the taste consonant with the age of concrete. Finally there is another large house, 11, Pembroke Gardens, Kensington (see Fig. 23). This was Thudichum's last home, on which he acquired a 60-year leasehold in 1876. There is a clean but run-down look about this house. It does not hide its age, and Thudichum's daughters have lived here since the death of their father, who left them memories and the house, which is their own until the leasehold expires in 1936. Nearby, at 94, Earl's Court, Thudichum had maintained a separate laboratory, but that building had burned down. At the appointed hour, the Rosenheims and Drabkins call at 11, Pembroke Gardens for tea. One enters through the door; it closes and the London of the present, its pulse and heat, are shut away. One is in the cool, dim atmosphere of an interior of a bygone day. Here are the daughters: Jeanette Friederike, the eldest and quietest, born May 16, 1855, she of the weak heart who would live to be 91 ; Marie Louise, the most vocative and buoyant, with the best memory, and most like her mother; Charlotte Ottilie, the singer and Thudichum's favorite, who looked most like him—there had been an earlier Charlotte, the second child, who had survived but two weeks; Henriette; Therese Victoria, the youngest, bom July 10, 1868, and on the twittery side. Therese and Marie are the sole wage earners; they must know a bit of the outside world. Charlotte had had in large measure a taste of the victories and disappointments of life, but there is nothing in her presence or that of her sisters that betrays such knowledge. By ordinary measure they are all elderly, but they have be-

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come only indirectly aware of this. T h e hand of age has descended first upon the house, the seams of their castle have been sprung in places, the roof is leaking, and they cannot afford the necessary repairs. Here are the genteel daughters, at the moment charming hostesses, living in the dress, the manners, and in the exact environment to the placement of each object as it was in their revered father's day. Here is Thudichum's large desk at the window; here, the "almost too efficient" coal stove he had designed and himself built; here, the massive old grand piano; here, the "Mader" glass from Ichtershausen, dated Dec. 27, 1718, a family heirloom—kept out of Thudichum's way for fear he would bump into it; here on the mantel is the clock surmounted by a bronze greyhound—a wedding present to Charlotte and Ludwig—still ticking, ticking away. One can also sense in these ladies, particularly in Marie, the main spokesman (and evidently so delegated by the others), more than a trace of excitement that, after so many silent years, visitors are beginning to trace their steps to their door, with inquiries about their father. They never had had any doubts about his greatness. Numerous questions are asked; they are graciously, even anxiously answered. Thudichum comes alive—one can actually feel his presence in this island of the past. "He had dark brown hair like mine" (Marie). "His height was five-ten, but afterwards stooped, with a slight paunch; he wore a frock coat and black derby." Sir Archibald Garrod had remembered him as a "big man"l Thudichum the father and Thudichum the man of the world. Though not a tall man, he was strongly built and an athlete. "Even in old age he could out-duel our brothers. He received a slight Schmiss in an obligatory Corps duel at Heidelberg, but he did not believe in this practice. , . . He

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was a fine horseman. We had two horses, Lady Diana, whom he rode daily in Hyde Park, and Black Beauty. Both were used for the phaeton in frequent outings at Jack Straw's Castle or at Richmond Park, with the family or his laboratory assistants." (Jack Straw's is a historic spot in suburban Hampstead, overlooking London, favored by the artistic. Dickens and Tennyson reputedly often dined at this tavern, named after a notorious highwayman.—One formula for fame: Be an attractive rascal.) We soon become aware that we are not facing Jeanette, Charlotte, Henriette, and Therese, but they are Willy Bear, Lottie, T u T u , and Rosie, as Thudichum had re-named them, the eldest after the Poodle. T h e two sons, living outside of London, could not be here for the occasion, but George Dupré, the sanitary engineer, was "Gyp" (after the Collie), and Louis Mader, "Lance," the name of the Scotch Deerhound. We failed to get Marie's nickname. This is the real Thudichum, the man of love and fun. T h e frock coat was not a symbol of stuffiness. In religion and politics Thudichum "remained a liberal," although after his disastrous experience in Germany he strictly avoided active partisanship in these matters. But his deep groundings were channeled into dedicated service, outspoken protagonism for what he regarded as socially and scientifically right. This, too, can get one into trouble. He became a British citizen and loyal subject of his adopted country in 1859, six years after his arrival. One can renounce political ties, but one cannot cut off his family, the roots, and the memories of those things which were good. He frequently made trips to Germany to scientific meetings, 81 and particularly to visit his loved ones. There were gay occasions, the wedding of his youngest brother in 1858, a combined celebration of his own birthday and the marriage of

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his sister Ottilie in August of 1859 to Hermann Weber, Doctor of Jurisprudence, the marriages of his sisters Luise and Marie in 1860 and 1864, respectively to Doctor of Philosophy Ferdinand Georg Philipp Karl Lotheissen, a teacher in his father's Gymnasium and later in the University of Vienna, and Doctor of Philosophy Konrad Lips, Professor at Darmstadt, and the marriage of his brother Friedrich in J u n e of 1865. There were the sad visits to attend the funerals of his uncle Ludwig in 1863, his father in December, 1873, and mother in April, 1879. Yes, the good things in the climate of Eden are remembered and preserved. And the good things are music, gardens, and those subtle family customs. As in his father's house, so in his own, all the children became proficient pianists, all inherited fine voices, especially Lottie. They used their natural instruments in the re-creation of the classical chamber works. All Beethoven's quartets were sung, but Thudichum's favorite (or their own, since there were seven of them) was this composer's Septet, a lyrical composition of his youth, before the nobility of suffering led to a more profound, personal outpouring. " T o get our father, immersed in his research work, down to dinner, we—usually Lottie—would strike loudly the opening bars of the Septet on the piano. Only this would get him to come quickly." T h e n there was the garden in the back of 11, Pembroke Gardens, which even on our visit had a vestige of its former beauty. Here Thudichum, with his children's help, grew "the best dahlias in all London." T h e n , as was the custom of his father before him, were the simple, homey gifts on holidays, birthdays, and odd times —nearly always accompanied by a poem (see Fig. 24). Thudichum the father and Thudichum the poet.

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H e was a prodigious worker, and maintained a strict routine; very, very tidy, everything had to be returned to its nichel . . . He was an early riser—time for his dogs, horses, and garden somehow was found before his patients arrived. The consultations were later in the morning till about eleven; then two hours in the laboratory. Luncheon was over by one. Then, ten minutes of complete rest on the parlor couch, during which we dared not disturb him. He emerged promptly, smoking a fine cigar, and returned to his research. . . . Until his death, he kept up his habit of reading the literature late at night, rarely going to bed before two in the morning. Four hours of sleep was all he needed. . . . On a morning stroll, Gyp, Lance, and Willy Bear [not the children, but the Collie, Deerhound, and Poodle], "papa, mama, and child," would trail him. Gyp was actually Lottie's, but cried when not allowed to accompany father, riding off on Diana, his favorite. Lance was a present from a "Scottish Laird," one of father's patients. It was a mangy pup, and he cured it with loving care. . . . He also loved Duncan, who served and helped him for many years. Duncan was uncouth and clumsy looking, but father said he had a light touch. Their attachment to each other was very strong. Old Duncan only lasted because of father's spirit. He went mad after father died. Much has become clear, but there is yet more. By ordinary standards he was somewhat of an eccentric and an epicure. But he was also an indulgent father, and he had a lusty, boyish humor. Rosie used to bring all sorts of little animals home. Once returning from Liverpool father said he had some fine animals for her in his waistcoat pocket—two little ivory elephants. . . . He liked jokes tremendously, but often spoiled them on telling them. Then, realizing he had spoiled them would say: "Well, that must be your joke. . . ." He was very fond of telling about Professor Liebig's remark on the occasion of his oral examination. T h e professor had asked him to tell all he knew about beer. He

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did so at length, and then came Liebig's terse comment, "Above all things, Herr Kandidat, beer is a drink." [See Figs. 25, 26, 27.] . . . Doctor Appel, the librarian of the South Kensington Museum, was a terrible bore. He would come, sit down and snooze, awake, and snooze again. When the clock would strike twelve, father would speak his thoughts aloud, not realizing that Doctor Appel had just awakened: "Well, when shall we meet again?" We found Doctor Appel too old and not at all amusing. We had many cats, which he did not like. One Christmas, with father's suggestion, we sent the old black one in a sack to Doctor Appel. He thought it was a turkey. My, wasn't he disappointed! He always thought that we, not father, were responsible for the prank. In reunions with his brothers, he and they were like boys, quite fresh. There was the incident on the hot train and the lady who did not wish the window opened. In unison they exclaimed "Off with the coats," and the coats came off, then "Off with the waistcoats," and these came off, then "Off with ." It was quite sufficient, the window was opened, and no further objections. The brothers kept up a wonderfully close relationship. You know, later Charles had a very famous boys' school at Geneva, and our other uncle, Frederick, was knighted in Germany. . . . Father was most buoyant, a great bluffer with his patients. There was a German singer with red hair and a horrible German accent. She was going to give a recital in Scotland. He told her that her diction and accent were perfectly Scottish, and her hair—why, she'd be taken for a true Scot. Lottie said she would not talk to him if he told her things of this type. He replied at once: "But I would not tell that to you." He smoked about three cigars daily, and he was most fussy about their quality. He could not understand how people smoked "Rauch du diese" cigars [handouts]. His own were the best Havanas available in London, if one may judge from the labels on the boxes in which his chemical specimen bottles were stored—Bock, most highly regarded in his day, La Elección, Henry Clay, de Villar, and

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special Havana cheroots, purchased from S. Van Raalte and Sons, 199, Piccadilly and 2, Glasshouse Street. (The latter shop was still in business in 1932. Indeed, it was still selling fine cigars and fine briers in 1955—unsolicited!) Thudichum himself attests to his high regard for cigar smoking, using the words "this ambrosial offering to Appollo," 15 and again, having left a most boring scientific meeting, although a final lecture had just begun on "Spirit and Tobacco": " . . . a subject which, one would have thought, by its sublimity, would rivet the attention of all. I confess that I was suddenly seized with a longing after the fragrant weed, to compose my shattered nervous system." 81 "Father favored at home certain special vintages of Steinberger." But whether it was his favored Steinberger or a "cup brimfull of ancient Niersteiner," 81 or hundreds of other varieties he had tested, in wines he was the connoisseur.8 Critical he was, and volubly so of the undeveloped palates of others. He brought samples of vintage wines for the audience to taste at his lectures,82 and carried his own beverages to parties—an origin of his repute as an eccentric, but a delightful side of this man. Research became fun and, at times, provoked criticism. As a medical student he made careful observations on the rapid increase in urine volume after beer drinking, 18 but the conversion of alcohol to energy in the body was studied in the course of wining and dining a large group of students in the garden of St. Thomas' Hospital: "There were 33 in number, including myself. We drank, from 2 o'clock in the afternoon till 7 in the evening 44 bottles of wine, consisting of white and red Hungarian, Burgundy, and Sauterne.—The alcoholic contents of total was an aggregate of 4,000 grammes of absolute alcohol.—All the urine passed from 2 o'clock till 6 next morning was collected and distilled—only 10 grammes of al-

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Thudichum: Chemist of the Brain

cohol were collected. The rest was burned in the system." w What an effective way of teaching, and uncovering new facts! What a gem for the storied past of St. Thomas' Hospitall Of course, exception would be taken to this unorthodoxy of viewpoint and experimentation, and it drew the rebuke of H. Munroe in "Alcohol Not a Food." a s I was denied the pleasure of checking this reference in 1932. After two trips to the great library of the British Museum where it was listed, the proper request form was finally correctly made from their catalogue (folio volumes compiled in longhand). I waited hopefully for one hour, and was then told by a prim miss "It moight tyke quoit a bit longer, Sir. Praps you moight come agyne to-morrow." But to-morrow, 11, Pembroke Gardens and Marie's poignant remembrances would make obsolete the dusty archives. For Thudichum, wine was truly God's gift to man. He had read exhaustively in their original languages all the pertinent literature available on viticulture and its lore, the ancient Greek and Latin works as well as the more recent in German, French, Italian, and Spanish, and had visited personally the important vineyards of Germany, France, and Spain. He writes in his Treatise of 1894: "Compared to the benefits (rouses the higher faculties of thought, memory, and imagination, the poetical forms of all phases of the mind; it increases the zest of life and its duration) which wine confers, the harm produced by its misuse is truly insignificant; even its symbolic role has protected its physiological mission, and it ought to increase and secure that protection for all time to come." 8 Surely there is a difference between drinking with the gullet and sipping on the palate; wine should be used "aesthetically." 84 H e was presumably much in demand as a lecturer on this subject (and not only because he distributed choice free samples!).82· 84 His lectures were anecdotal, full

Fie. 1. (See reverse page.) Exhibit of T h u d i c h u m i a n a , collected by the writer; photographed by the Illustration Studios of the University of Illinois Medical Center. T h e exhibit included three photographs of T h u d i c h u m , his major published books, photographs of the houses he lived in (in Büdingen, Hessen, Germany, and in London), an original copy of his honorary degree diploma from the University of Glessen, original letters from Liebig (four), Virchow (two), Hoppe-Seyler, Pflüger (two), Richard Owen, Esmarch, and Ruskin, and other items of interest. Among the latter, seen on the stand, to the left of center, are three of T h u d i c h u m ' s original chemical preparations, in bottles labeled in his own hand. These were a m o n g some three h u n d r e d discovered by Otto Rosenheim in the stable of 11, Pembroke Gardens, T h u d i c h u m ' s last home (see Ref. 27). On the rear wall, center, is a proof of an engraving of T h u d i c h u m ' s combustion apparatus, a present to h i m from Liebig. On the wall at the right, not shown at this angle, were his drawings of two bivouacs in the Danish W a r (1850), in which he served as a volunteer surgeon in the Schleswig-Holstein Army. Below, on the bottom inclined shelf are T h u d i c h u m ' s original drawings of various urinary crystals (with some crystallographic data on angles, etc.) for his treatise on the Pathology of the Urine, which accompanies them (see Fig. la). At the extreme left on this lower shelf are u n p u b lished manuscripts, a m o n g them the "History of Beer a n d Ale. Hops a n d Kent H o p Gardens" (see Figs. 25 and 26 and page 62), and the original of a long letter on "Cape of Good H o p e Wines," sent to "his Excellency Sir Alfred Milner, Governor of t h e Cape of Good H o p e Colony," a n d a reply to this letter. Lying open, behind and to the side of T h u d i c h u m ' s Spirit of Cookery (Ref. 19), is his brother's History of the Thudichum Family (from 1716 to 1848) (see Ref. 26). On t h e rear wall to the left of the T i t l e of the Exhibit, as an example, is a hectographic copy of a letter by T h u d i c h u m to Pfliiger. This was m a d e by transferring the original writing to a slab of gelatin treated with glycerine; the gelatin impression was then used to obtain exact transcripts. Thudicum, involved in controversy, got into the habit of making such copies "for the record." Copies of his letters to Liebig were made in the same way. In their present state, t h o u g h legible, they are not suitable for reproduction. Virchow once objected most forcefully to receiving such a hectographic transcript from T h u d i c h u m . (In o u r "busy" age, even personal letters are sometimes typed, thereby given a cloak of anonymity, and it is usual to make carbon copies. T h u s what is regarded as bad taste in an earlier period becomes the customary practice in a later one.) T h e diploma and family chronicle were presented to the writer by T h u d i chum's daughters.

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Fig. la. T h u d i c h u m ' s original drawings of crystals (including some crystallographic measurements) of urinary oxalates, urates, etc., some of which were later used in his first m a j o r book, Treatise on Pathology of the Urine (cf. Fig. 1 and its Legend, a n d Bibliographic Ref. 22, Appendix 1), were inserted in a blue-gray paper cover, previously used for other notes. T h e earlier inscription on this cover in T h u d i c h u m ' s handwriting is: "Lectures on N a t u r a l Philosophy at the School of Anatomy a n d Medicine a d j o i n i n g St. George's Hospital. Summer Session, 1855." His drawings—the example shown is of calcium oxalate (Left part of Figure)—were m a d e on cards, 4.5 X 3 inches. These were pasted on grayish stock paper. I h a d been aware that some of the cards contained printed matter under T h u d i c h u m ' s n a m e on their original obverse side. Many years ago, when he sent on this T h u d i c h u m item, Rosenheim h a d written: "These drawings were m a d e on the back of Student's Admission cards etc. T h e printed matter may be read by holding u p to light." Many of the cards are admission cards to lectures on Chemistry or on Descriptive Anatomy at the "Grosvenor Place School of Anatomy and Medicine, a d j o i n i n g St. George's Hospital," signed by W. W . Burford (Dean?). However, those p r i n t e d with T h u d i c h u m ' s name in large letters intrigued me. Only two weeks before this manuscript went to press I finally obtained sufficient courage a n d , without injury to the original drawing, managed to "peel off" the p a p e r backing and expose the printed m a t t e r on one of the cards (Right part of Figure). It is a most interesting and rewarding "find." A light is cast on T h u d i c h u m ' s very early days in London and his perhaps r a t h e r unorthodox "methods." But, above all, the printed card does furnish exact verification of some early dates in T h u d i chum's life (see Appendix II).—There is no evidence that T h u d i c h u m was the successful "candidate," but he tried.

Fig. 2. Xylographie illustration, fondly called by the pet n a m e "Nosi" by T h u dichum, showing him, with heliograph and electric cautery, removing a nasal polyp. Perhaps the patient is Marie Broma, the celebrated diva, or some other attractive lady. Kingzett is assisting him (see Refs. 39 and 40). T h e batteries shown in the drawing were actually in an adjoining room.

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Fir,. 3. Honorary degree diploma, conferred on T h u d i c h u m on August 23, 1901 (two weeks before his death), by the University of Giessen, on the occasion of t h e fiftieth anniversary of his graduation. T h e diploma in the exhibit (Fig. 1) is one of six original copies given to Thudichum—presumably a custom of that dav.

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FIG. 4. T i t l e page of T h u d i c h u m ' s monumental classic on the chemistry of t h e brain (see Ref. 4).

Fie. 5. T h u d i c h u m ' s p o r t r a i t thirty-Ill ree ( f r o m R e f . 20).

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Fio. 7. T h i s , t h e rarest of T h u d i c h u m ' s p o r t r a i t s , shows h i m a t t h e age of a b o u t fifty, at t h e h e i g h t of his research career. T h e family knew that the photograph h a d existed, b u t h a d n o copy of it. It was discovered by t h e w r i t e r o n J u l y 28, 1933, in a n a t t i c of t h e School of Medicine of t h e University of P e n n s y l v a n i a . T h e o r i g i n a l p h o t o g r a p h was by M o i r a a n d H a i g h , " P h o t o g r a p h e r s of R o y a l t y , " L o n d o n . Needless to say, it was most p l e a s a n t to p r e s e n t a copy to T h u d i c h u m ' s d a u g h t e r s , as a small t o k e n of t h a n k s for t h e i r kindnesses.

Fic. 6. T h u d i c h u m ' s p o r t r a i t at age sixty ( f r o m Rei. 20).

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FIG. 45. Two pages from the original manuscript for the first chapter of Thudichum's Anatomical and Clinical Chemistry (the Grundzüge; cf. Ref. 100), now in the writer's possession. T h e foolscap pages 28 to 29 correspond with pages 25 to 26 in the published work, and on them is Thudichum's remarkable "document," quoted by me (sec p. 144).

FIG. 16. (See facing page.) Specimens of T h u d i c h u m ' s original chemical preparations. These samples, among a total of some three h u n d r e d specimen bottles and vials, labeled carefully in T h u d i c h u m ' s own h a n d (and accompanied by notebooks with complete details) were discovered by Otto Rosenheim in 1932 in the stable of II, Pembroke Gardens, where they had been stored (cf. Ref. 27). T h e main collection and the notebooks are now housed in the National Institute for Medical Research, London, as a memorial to T h u d i c h u m , who may be regarded as the first chemist of the Institute. Rosenheim has personally checked the purity of some of the more important preparations, and verified the correctness of T h u d i c h u m ' s original analytical data (cf. Ref. 27a and Ref. t, Appendix V). Loioer (left to right): Samples now in the writer's collection of T h u d i chumiana: Preparation Xo. 13: "From ox cerebrin alcohol exts. after lead process, Phrenosin, Sphingomyelin . . . were removed . . . probably Assurin (and Istarin ?)." See T h u d i c h u m ' s Chemistry of the Brain, pp. 175-176 (Ref. 4, 1901). Preparation No. 152: "Leucin from Cancerous T u m o r , " prepared 29/7/70. Preparation No. 202: "Cholate of Copper. . . . Purest in tube. Second part outside." . . . This information is correct, and this specimen reflects T h u d i c h u m ' s m a n n e r of work and the rigid standards he had set for himself. Upper: Samples now in the collection of Professor Claude Rimington, Dep a r t m e n t of Chemical Pathology, University College Hospital Medical School (University of London). These ninety-year-old specimens of T h u d i c h u m ' s original preparations of cruentine (hematoporphyrin; cf. Ref. 64, p. 227) as well as some of his bile pigment preparations were exhibited by Professor Rimington, the Chairman, at the recent Ciba Foundation Symposium on " T h e Biosynthesis of Porphyrins and Porphyrin Metabolism," London, February 8-10, 1955 (cf. Ref. 65). It is T h u d i c h u m ' s work on hematoporphyrin that HoppeSeyler, commonly regarded as the discoverer of this substance in 1871, had slanderously criticized as "offenbar Falsches "—patently spurious or falsified.

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FIG. 47. T h e end o[ a long letter from J. F. A. von Esmarch, then Professor of Surgery at Kiel, to Thuclichum (cf. Appendix IV, No. 1, for complete transcript). T h i s letter is most interesting on several counts. It is a confidential •f*. letter, obviously to a close friend, and is addressed "Lieber Freund." It was written on J a n u a r y 28, 1804, Á'//,jrr.-t'' one day before the outbreak of the Schleswig-Holstein war of liberation (from Denmark). It also reveals (at the end of the letter) that T h u d i c u m had recently inquired concerning the possible availability of a post at Kiel. Esmarch asks several favors from T h u d i c h u m : ". . . At this time the outlook for our project is as bad as it possibly can be; to-morrow the Prussians and the Austrians will invade Schleswig and take possession of it for Bismarck and later for Christian IX. However, we confidently hold the opinion that Bismarck is not the man, nor is world history going to be shaped in the way he has it arranged in his head. [Esmarch is alluding to the possibility of the annexation of Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia, the very thing that Bismarck did after the defeat of the Danes.] If my guess does not betray me, this time the German people will speak up, and, if necessary, with war. . . . W h a t the English newspapers write and scream about no one in Germany even cares at this moment—only the followers of Bismarck use the [London] Times for the purpose it can serve them. We Schleswig-Holsteiners still trust in God, a n d are ready to fight for our just rights with all o u r goods and our blood. . . . As soon as we are recognized by the German Federation—and this will be in a short time—we will have our own army. . . . I have been given to understand that I will be the Surgeon General of this army. Since the Danes have taken away all o u r medical supplies, we must start from scratch. Now I must ask you to do me a favor. In a short article on English Military Medicine Gures [?] writes that he has seen in an Exhibition Hall in Woolwich a small two-wheeled cart [or chariot] (similar to those of orange vendors you see in the L o n d o n streets), which are e q u i p p e d with a litter on springs to accommodate one wounded soldier, and which can be d r a w n by one soldier of the Sanitary Corps. . . . Will it be possible for you to make for me a drawing of this cart, or even better to get a small model? I would be most grateful to you. I am now sorry that I failed to get this information on my London visit, b u t who could then know that so soon I would be in need of it? " T h e fact that P a n u m has been sworn in by the King of Denmark to Eschricht's post, the Chair of Physiology, at Copenhagen should not astonish you. H e is a born Dane, a n d h a d been slated for this post for a long time. H e will leave for Copenhagen at Easter, a n d our talented Hensen, his Prosector, will replace h i m here [at Kiel]." T h e translation of the end of Esmarch's letter (shown in the Figure) is: ". . . u n f o r t u n a t e l y , therefore, I see no chance for you as a result of P a n u m ' s d e p a r t u r e . 'Uncle' Weber has married Professor Weber's widow, a n d he sends his greetings to you. Recently they became the parents of a healthy boy. Now, stay well, a n d , if it does not cause you too much inconvenience, attend to my request. " W i t h heartfelt greetings"

Fie. 18. Copy of colored l i t h o g r a p h P l a t e II f r o m T h u d i c h u m ' s classic Treatise on Call Stones (see R e f . 17). T h e p l a t e i l l u s t r a t e s six casts of h u m a n bile d u c t s ( m a g n i f i e d 120 times), o b t a i n e d by T h u d i c h u m f r o m t h e centres of gallstones, a n d n i n e biliary calculi. T h e specimens a r e n u m b e r e d a n d a r e discussed in t h e text, in t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of T h u d i c h u m ' s " n i d u s " t h e o r y of gallstone f o r m a t i o n .

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Fir.. 49. The "petition" to the British Government for a pension lo the Thudichum daughters, in recognition of the work of their father, was signed by a most illustrious group of scientists.—From a photographic copy of the original, made by Otto Rosenheim. The second name on the list is that of Lord Rutherford of Nelson. E. F. Armstrong, the carbohydrate chemist, had expressed the wish of joining the signatories, but he was away from London at the time.

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PENSION 30 Fig. 50. A photographic copy of a "Special" item in the London Daily Mail of July 15, 1931, in regard to the Civil Pension granted to Thudichum's daughters, "in recognition of the work of their father . . . on the chemistry of living processes." The photograph of Thudichum is doubtless a copy of that in Fig. 6. T h e lower portion of the beard has been somewhat emphasized by retouchingafter all, a small liberty for which the press may be forgiven.

AFTER

YEARS.