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| Extract from: American Journal of Medical Genetics 33:522-536 (1989). Requests for Reprints University of South Alabama, College of Medicine,
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Part 4
The path that led Don José toward his study of congenital malformations sprang from his interest in endemic goiter and cretinism. He still believes his articles on these topics are "the most important and best pieces I have written." In 1940, Don José began to report scientific observations that broke the hold of traditional views that congenital malformations were inherently genetic in nature. His early studies culminated in the formulation of the scientific principles of teratology. The reports of 1940 and 1942 concerning "Congenital Malformations Induced in Rats by Maternal Nutritional Deficiency" represent landmarks about the environmental etiology of congenital malformations, of which Don José said, F. Hale preceded me by eight years with his studies of vitamin A and anophthalmia in pigs ... our studies were begun with the aim to induce rickets ... it was a failure that led to something better ... riboflavin was found to be a preventive and (to be an) essential nutritional factor needed for normal prenatal bone development, needed before ossification and chondrification began ... this was war time and few could continue their scientific studies ... I could not defend our work until it was independently confirmed ... Dr. Giroud, a Frenchman, confirmed our experiments about seven years later [Warkany and Nelson, 1940; Warkany et al., 1942].
Helen B. Taussig, Harry H. Gordon, Albert B. Sabin, and Josef Warkany during a Howland Awardees Dinner (1978) |
As one who has been in medical research for many decades, I have learned a great deal about the vicissitudes of medical investigations ... the lesson to be learned is that usually crash programs succeed because the ground has been prepared for 50 to a 100 years ... may I make a modest suggestion for your consideration? ... I took up cancer research because of my interest in congenital malformations that are said to predispose to cancers ... it is possible to produce in animals congenital malformations ... we obtained a contract ... after 15 months it became obvious that (contrary to expectations) ... irradiation reduced significantly the incidence of tumors ... this phenomenon is more interesting than the project we planned ... (the contract was terminated) ... serendipity is a well-known instrument of science ... many investigators who looked for silver found gold ... I wonder if ... a clearing house could be established that could shift contracts from one branch to another when impartial investigators obtain interesting results contrary to expectations.
The letter was not answered by the addressee but by a lay assistant chief for policy, who replied "... impracticable and indeed contrary to existing Government procedures and regulations." Such shallowness often leads Don José to quote Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, who, although a Nobel prize winner, was discouraged, and stated, scientific research is, in many ways, related to art ... the foundation of science is honesty ... the present granting method is so much at variance with the basic ideas of science that it has to breed dishonesty ... one of the widely applied practices is to do work and then present results as a project and report later that all predictions were verified... I am not applying [for grants] any more [Szent-Gyorgyi, 1974].
Gallery of Etchings by Dr. Josef Warkany
