_LES PRIX NOBEL EN 1929_
_The Earlier History of Vitamin Research_
_Sir Frederick Cowland Hopkins F R S_
On the day I had packed up my luggage, my ambitions and my illusions to leave Cambridge for good, I had taken a self-consciously sentimental breakfast-time walk along the river. It was a December morning which sharply reminded the University that it was but an intruder in the Fens. The Backs wore their midwinter splendour, trees ghostly with frost under the bleary eye of a newly awakened sun, even the incorrigible mallards dulled with cold on the steely waters of the Cam. On Trinity bridge I encountered 'floppy', long moustache covering the angles of his mouth to bestow a look of everlasting pondering, his eyes mirrors of infinite shrewdness. When I disclosed I was disappearing to Wuppertal he was amazed and shocked. 'Going over to the enemy,' he called it. But with his usual kindness he suggested that I carried the signed reprint as an introduction to Domagk, who might perhaps be useful to me.
Domagk offered a packet of Juno cigarettes-_Berlin raucht Juno,_ said the advertisements-but I have never smoked. 'The vitamins may be a simple idea,' he said, turning Hoppy's few pages, 'but simple ideas need genius to see them. I have often to remind myself that a scientist must view the world through a telescope as well as a microscope. Though sometimes even a telescope is unnecessary, because the most useful ideas stand on the horizon like mountains and we never see them.'
There was a silence. The conversational possibilities between us seemed swiftly exhausted. Perhaps thinking it churlish to evict me so promptly, Domagk added, 'I understand from Dr Dieffenbach that you're working for the Red Crown brewery across at Barmen. That's the American concern, isn't it? Do you find the job interesting?'
'Not in the slightest.'
Domagk gave his shy smile, tossing the spent match into a large glass ashtray. 'Well, I prefer wine myself. And so does Dr Dieffenbach.' I had already found the cellar no disadvantage in my lodgings. 'We don't see many Englishmen or Americans in Germany. It's understandable. The war was hardly a tennis match. You were lucky to go through it as a child, Herr Elgar. I had to leave Kiel University after my first semester to join the colours as a grenadier. I celebrated my nineteenth birthday in a dugout on the Belgian coast at Nieuport, fighting the Tommies. The Tommies wounded me in 1915, so I was posted to the Medical Corps.' He imparted all this with his usual quiet voice. 'In a most lowly capacity. The upshot was my qualifying in medicine at Kiel five years later than I expected. Well, I shouldn't complain. Most of my academic brothers lost their lives.'
I felt somehow personally responsible for these misfortunes, and for some reason quoted H G Wells, 'It was the war that will end war.' But Domagk only smiled again and diverted the unpleasant subject by asking, 'Have you done any research yourself?'
I nodded. 'I held a six months scholarship at Cambridge after taking Tripos. I studied the affinity of bacteria for dyes.'
I was startled at the effect of this scientifically inconsequential information. Domagk stiffened in his chair, staring at me for several seconds frowning and half-smiling, like a man suspecting you are pulling his leg. Embarrassed and puzzled, I explained, 'Just the usual bacteriologist's dyes, gentian violet, methylene blue, carbol fuchsin and so on.' They were used to stain bacteria to make them visible under the microscope, a notion which had come from the German Karl Weigert in the previous century. 'I was investigating the chemical reaction behind the colouring effect.'
'I see.' After another moment Domagk said, 'As you can imagine, we're always investigating the properties of dyestuffs in the labs here. I G Farben manufactures drugs, fabrics, a hundred things, but we're essentially a dye-making concern. The company is inclined to see itself as God, creating the colourful dawn and rainbows to please His fancy. You're familiar with that passage in Goethe's _West-Цstlicher Divan?'_ I shook my head. 'At present I'm investigating a series of dyes, to discover if they've any therapeutic effect against various bacteria.'
It struck me as curious that I G Farben should dissipate its scientists' time seeking remedies in the colours of curtains and girls' dresses. The only dyestuffs I recalled being used as medicaments were the bright yellow proflavine and the brilliant green which had disfigured my adolescent face worse than the impetigo spots they were applied to cure. While speaking, Domagk had taken from a desk drawer a reprint of his own, on which he scribbled and handed to me with a dismissive, 'Please pass that on to Sir Frederick, with my regards and respects.'
I saw the paper was entitled in German, _The Destruction of Infectious Agents._ The date was 1926. It must have been among the first scientific papers Domagk wrote. He seemed an early recruit in man's battle against infection, which progressed with the gloomy indecision of any which had lurched upon the Western Front.
We rose. I nodded towards the photograph of Paul Ehrlich, remarking, _'Geld, Geduld, Geschick, Gluck'-_money, patience, skill and luck, his four ingredients for successful research.
'Who taught you that?' Domagk asked as we reached the door.
'When I was seventeen, I worked in the Inoculation Department of St Mary's Hospital in London-'
'So young! You will soon be a professor,' he exclaimed humorously.
'I was only a technician.' I had been the lab boy, the equivalent of an office boy, who washed the glassware, prepared the flat, round Petri dishes for growing bacteria, and of course made the tea. 'Before Professor Ehrlich died during the war, he had been on very friendly terms with one of the bacteriologists at St Mary's-Professor Alexander Fleming. Perhaps you've heard of him?'
Domagk shook his head. 'I only know the chief of the Inoculation Department, Sir Almroth Wright. He came to visit us here at Elberfeld, you know.' That must have been after my time. Knowing Wright's disdain for chemistry, and particularly the systematized German variety, his reflections on Domagk's lavishly-equipped labs would have reverberated throughout St Mary's. 'By the way-' Domagk nodded towards Ehrlich's photograph. 'It's a myth that he had to investigate 605 arsenicals before discovering "Salvarsan". But he examined a good number, and slaughtered whole armies of mice.
In the corridor outside we found Professor Hцrlein emerging from the lab where we had met. From the way Domagk stepped back I sensed Hцrlein was an important person in the factory. But he said to me pleasantly enough, 'You've come a long way to our city of Wuppertal, Herr Elgar. I hope you'll find it an interesting place.' Everyone seemed to damn Wuppertal with the faint, non-committal praise of _eine interessante Stadt._ 'The Elberfeld Rathaus has an excellent museum, and there is a remarkable old church in the Kolk. You have already visited our splendid Lauretuiskirke, doubtless.'
Domagk smiled. 'Wuppertal cannot offer a great deal of amusement for a young man. It's hardly Paris, _nicht water?_ There's the cinema. And I expect you enjoy the company of Frдulein Dieffenbach.'
Professor Hцrlein shook hands. 'I expect we shall see each other again.'
But we did not, until he was on trial for his life at Nьrnberg.
3
'Well, what do you expect?' Frдulein Dieffenbach used an unnaturally sharp voice for arguments, or when she was embarrassed or chiding me about the puddles I left on the bathroom floor. 'We supposed everything would be settled in accordance with the famous Fourteen Points, because after all, President Wilson was a lawyer, so he could produce a just agreement in an intelligent way, without emotion or malice.'
'Whoever heard of a lawyer stopping a battle?' I asked-in German, because she spoke hardly any English.
'The Americans, obviously,' she replied primly.