Enthusiasm for Inventors

Jie Jack Li's book "Laughing Gas, Viagra, and Lipitor: The Human Stories behind the Drugs We Use" treats readers to the inspiring tales of the discovery of dozens of drugs from digitalis to anesthetics to today's blockbuster pharmaceuticals. Although the science in the book is solid, in fact, it may be a bit much for a lay reader, the personal tidbits sprinkled liberally throughout will appeal to all audiences.

This book is star-studded, featuring Nobel Laureates such as Howard Florey, Gertrude Elion, and Selman Waksman in abundance, but it also includes the frequently dramatic stories of less famous characters in the field of drug discovery. It discusses their passions and jealousies, along with their heroics, histrionics, and shortcomings. Li's book is filled with little gems that you will not come upon elsewhere.

For example, Li tells us of John F. Cade (1912–80), an Australian physician who served time as a prisoner of war in Japan in 1944. "On his return from war," Li writes, "he was a walking skeleton of 80 pounds." Cade returned to medical practice at Bundoora Repatriation Mental Hospital in Melbourne and in 1948 embarked on a study of the causes of manic-depressive disease. He thought, incorrectly, that abnormal uric acid metabolism caused the disease.

Serendipity struck when Cade used lithium ureate to solubilize the uric acid before injecting it into guinea pigs. He noticed that the guinea pigs became profoundly calm after about two hours. In what Li describes as a "flash of insight," Cade predicted that lithium might have some use in treating mania. Cade published his results in 1949 in the little-known Medical Journal of Australia. Very few people noticed. It wasn't until the 1970s, with the help of the Danish physician Morgens Schou, that lithium gained wide acceptance for treating bipolar disease.

At times, Li's stories read like cliffhangers. He describes Bayer scientist Gerhard Domagk (1895–1946), a German chemist who discovered in 1932 that the dye 2′,4′-diaminoazobenzene-4-sulfonamide inhibited bacterial growth in mice. The discovery had deep personal impact when in November of that year, Domagk's four-year-old daughter, Hildegarde, pricked herself with an embroidery needle contaminated with streptococcal bacteria. The child was near death and there was little hope. Desperate to save her life, Domagk injected Hildegarde with a large dose of the compound, later named Prontosil, and she recovered. Prontosil was the first sulfa drug.

While the story of Hildegarde is rather well-known, Li points out that Domagk's publication of the breakthrough that saved his daughter was delayed for several years, because Prontosil had been used as a dye for years and was about to go off-patent. Without patent protection, Bayer couldn't make as much money. Perhaps many Hildegardes could have been saved if the promise for profit had been stronger. After becoming available in 1935, Prontosil saved millions of lives.

In a chapter on cancer, Li, who is a medicinal chemist at Pfizer in Ann Arbor, Mich., describes various early theories of carcinogenesis. To illustrate this, he tells about British doctor Percival Pott, who, in the 18th century, observed that English chimney sweeps were more prone to develop skin cancers than their French counterparts. Further scrutiny revealed that the French sweeps bathed more frequently after working. On this basis, Pott speculated that long exposure to coal tar can cause skin cancer. He was right.

In 1915, 140 years later, physicians Katsusaburo Yamagiwa and Koichi Ichikawa at Tokyo University ran experiments applying coal tar to rabbits' ears, thereby inducing tumors. This was the first demonstration of a chemical causing cancer in an animal model. If you're thinking that the 1926 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which honored discoveries related to cancer, went to Yamagiwa or Ichikawa, you'd be wrong. Li tells us that it went to Johannes Fibiger, whose incorrect theory was that a worm causes stomach cancer.

The book provides hundreds of jumping-off points for further research on inventors, biology, and medicinal chemistry. It has an appendix containing the chemical structures of the drugs discussed and another appendix with the drugs' trademarks. It is extensively end-noted and contains a 14-page bibliography and a full index. A limited preview is available on Google Books (www.google.com/books).

Marv Rudolph's enthusiasm for invention comes through in his book "Pop Rocks: The Inside Story of America's Revolutionary Candy." For the uninitiated, Pop Rocks are hard, fruit-flavored candy "pebbles" that contain carbon dioxide and cause a crackling exploding sensation in the mouth. They used to be made by General Foods, and they are still available from other manufacturers. Pop Rocks were a fad in the late 1970s and early 1980s-ask any 40-year-old.

I'll admit that when I saw this little book, I doubted that a writer could sustain an entire book—even a small one—about the famous exploding candy. One-subject nonfiction is becoming a trend, though. Since Rudolph's book came out last year, "The Toothpick: Technology and Culture" has been published. That's right, Henry Petroski of "Pencils" fame has written a 400-ish page book on toothpicks, prompting a New York Times Book Review essayist to ask Petroski to "knock it off."

I'm glad that nobody made Rudolph "knock it off." He is a Ph.D. physical chemist and food technologist who worked at General Foods in the 1970s. His chronicle of the development of carbonated candy is fun all the way through. He describes the work of William A. Mitchell, who invented the candy in 1956 when he was trying to invent an instant carbonated drink akin to instant coffee. He gives details on the chemistry, the engineering, the packaging, and the marketing behind the product. He describes the people at General Foods who brought the invention to market and those who stopped its production when the fad was over and the company started losing money on Pop Rocks.

Rudolph even clears up the enduring mystery surrounding Pop Rocks: Did Pop Rocks kill Mikey???the Life Cereal kid? I won't let that cat out of the bag, but I will recommend reading the book. It is guaranteed to please. Read the first chapter at www.specialtypublishers.com, where the book can also be purchased.