Speaking Ill of the Dead

CORRESPONDENCE

door in that laboratory. So far as I know, Speaking ill of Pain pathways security practices there did not differ from SIR-You recently published two Letters1.2 practices in other laboratories at MIT reporting a new ATP receptor on neurons where similar research was conducted. the Dead in the pain pathway. I should like to The incident to which I referred was in an SIR - I was disappointed by John L. expand on the brief reference to the histori entirely different MIT building. In addi Casti's remarks about the rock band "The cal background given in the accompanying tion, contrary to your article's wording, Grateful Dead" in his review of Tyler News and Views article3• The papers pub the door in question was only temporarily, Yolk's Metapattems: Across Space, Time, lished in the 1950s by Francis and the late not permanently, kept open, and keeping and Mind (Nature 377, 24; 1995). Pamela Holton45 gave good evidence that that door open was contrary to MIT poli Jerry Garcia, the band's lead guitarist, the transmitter for antidromic vasodilata cy, not to any requirement of law. was no lightweight entertainer. On the con tion is ATP. Kenneth D. Campbell trary, his career has been likened to that of It was then already well established (see, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong, Miles for example, Thomas Lewis's classic of Cambridge, Davis and Charles Mingus. "The Grateful 19276) that this phenomenon, blood vessel Massachusetts 02139, USA Dead" were not only engaged with the real dilatation in an area of skin when the senso issues of our time but practically married to ry nerve to that area is stimulated, is the a philosophy of change through a very sim efferent side of the axon reflex, the dilata Colonial dinosaur ple musical model. The beauty inherent to tion of skin vessels resulting from activation their wizardry was often astounding to of pain fibres in the skin and conducted to SIR-Kipling, had he been alive, would be behold, physically and spiritually. In addi nearby blood vessels through branches of glad to know that the fawning, loyal subject tion to the musical magic they created for those fibres. So the connection between of colonial days looking up to his overlord the pleasure of millions, the members of ATP and pain goes back more than 40 years for justice is not extinct. B. N. Dwivedi's the band were socially conscious. They par and is not a new idea as implied in the letter (Nature 376, 545; 1995) shows the ticipated in countless benefits to fight News and Views article. It is also depress same sovereign contempt and distrust in homelessness, rape, AIDS, environmental ing that authoritative works of 1971 and which the colonial subject held his compa issues and blindness, and helped to pro 1984 stated that the transmitter for triots and the same eagerness to go crying mote the handicapped and education. antidromic vasodilatation was unknown7•8• and complaining about supposed wrongs to They were genuinely interested in prevent The motive given by the Holtons for set his master and cling to his garment. ing and relieving suffering and promoting ting out to identify the peripheral transmit Using the columns of Nature as a vehicle hope through compassionate action. ter of these pain fibres was that it would for self-praise and denigration of this coun Among other projects, their participa provide a suggestion for the identity of the try, this writer expects to be patted on the tion and influence helped to provide sup peripheral transmitter used at the central back by announcing his admiration for port for: more than 30,000 cataract end of the same neurons in the spinal cord Oxford, Cambridge and Glasgow, and, per operations and the building a state-of-the or brain stem, on the basis of the proposal haps, also expects to be invited to enjoy art eye hospital in the Lumbini zone of by Henry Dale9 in 1935 that a nerve cell was spells of "home weather". Nepal; more than 200,000 surgical opera likely to use the same transmitter at both its Meanwhile, scientists and professors in tions at Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, peripheral and its central terminations. India are supposedly employed in imped India; nutrition, health and education pro This farsighted plan by the Holtons links ing not only the progress of science but also grammes at three refugee camps in Mexi their work even more closely with the dis that of "conscientious" persons like your co; the creation of the Jaguar Project to covery of appropriate receptors on nerve correspondent who "loves to teach but accompany refugees returning to cell bodies in the pain pathway. It is satisfy seeks to be evaluated on his research Guatemala; devastated Guatemalan vil ing that their surmise, well known at the work". lages by supplying animals, tools and seeds time, has at long last been given further Young engineering graduates, according to help reduce their dependence on support; sadly, Pamela Holten died at an to him, must not encroach upon physics, imported fertilizers; Mayan farmers for early age in 1977 and never knew how accu although an exception can be made in the community development projects such as rately she and her husband had foreshad case of Dirac because of his association housing, water supplies, health care and owed this discovery. with Cambridge. cottage industries; grassroots organizations Andrew Huxley The Indian science community is on Native American reservations to pro Trinity College, allegedly drawing inspiration from the vide health clinics, protect the environment Cambridge CB2 1 TQ, UK members of one of the world's oldest and safeguard traditional knowledge; a professions. Will they be grateful for this 1. Chen, C·C. eta/. Nature 377, 428-431 (1995). range of grants to help preserve Tibetan 2. Lewis, C. et a/. Nature 377, 432-435 (1995). dubious distinction conferred on them? culture. 3. Kennedy, C. & Leff, P. Nature 377, 385- 386 (1995). They may have better decency and judge 4. Holton, F.A. & Holton, P. J. Physiol. 118, 310-327 (1952); Their accomplishments will ensure that 126, 124-140 (1954). ment. they are remembered far beyond the life of 5. Holton, P. J. Physiol. 145, 494- 504 (1959). The first impulse of many readers of 6. Lewis. T. The Blood Vessels of the Human Skin and Their Jerry Garcia and the musical life of "The Responses. p. 223 (Shaw, London. 1927). Dwivedi's letter may be to condemn it to Grateful Dead". 7. Folkow, B. & Neil. E. Circulation, p. 301 (Oxford University the oblivion it deserves, but the Indian Joshua R. Schultz Press, New York, London, 1971). Department of Science, the government, 8. Renkin, E. M. p. 673 in Handbook of Physiology, section 2, Molecular Genetics Laboratory, Vo l. IV, part 2 (Amencan Physiological Society, Bethesda, the national laboratories, institutes and University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Maryland, 1984). universities and all Indians will have to take 9. Dale, H. H. Proc. R. Soc. Med. 28, 319-332 (1935). Ottawa Civic Hospital, note of this denigration of India and Indian 1053 Carling Avenue, science in journals published abroad. Indi Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1 Y 4EY Security at MIT an science and its administration are, unfortunately for Dwivedi, no longer the Correspondence SIR - Your News story (Nature 378, 9; "white man's burden". Letters submitted for Correspondence 1995) about a researcher's ingestion of S. S. Kushwaha should be typed, double-spaced, on one phosphorus-32 at MIT, which quotes a Department of Physics, side of the paper only, or e-mailed to statement by me, implies that I was aware Banaras Hindu University, [email protected] of a security problem involving an open Varanasi 221005, India 658 NATURE · VO L 378 · 14 DECEMBER 1995