ACCIDENTAL CURES

MeDICINeS discovered by accident. this week: Warfarin FOR WELL over half a century, warfarin has been the main blood-thinning drug to treat patients at risk of potentially fatal blood clots — often as a result of a deep vein thrombosis (a clot in small blood vessels in the lower legs).

The anticoagulant was discovered when farmers in poverty-stricken Twenties America were forced to feed cattle damp or mouldy hay and noticed seemingly healthy animals dying from internal bleeding. It turned out that a mould in the hay contained an anticoagulant called dicoumarol. In 1940, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison isolated the compound, paving the way for mass manufacture of warfarin. Although it’s widely used in humans, it also gained notoriety as a deadly rat poison.