ACCIDENTAL MEDICINE

MEDICAL breakthroughs discovered by accident. This week: Chemotherapy CHEMOTHERAPY’S roots lie in German mustard gas attacks on Allied troops in World War I.

The first such attack, in Ypres in 1917, left up to 10,000 dead. In the Thirties, with World War II looming, Allied scientists raced to create antidotes.

Two doctors at Yale University, Louis Goodman and Alfred Gilman, studied mustard gas victims’ medical records, noticing many had a very low white blood cell count. When these mutate, they cause leukaemia and lymphoma. The scientists realised that if mustard gas could destroy normal white blood cells, they might also destroy cancerous ones.

Their first patient, JD, was dying from lymphoma. In 1942 he was given an injection of nitrogen mustard, used to make mustard gas. His condition improved (albeit briefly).

This paved the way for other drugs that destroy patients’ cells to save their lives — the principle of chemotherapy.