Howard Florey Hans Krebs (Photo: Wellcome Library, London) Insulin Edward Mellanby’s reputation as a scientific clinician was Dis covery one of the reasons why the Medical Research Council chose Sheffield in 1923 as the only provincial centre to produce and test insulin – a new therapy at the time. His most famous patient – Stuart Goodwin (later the founder of the University’s Athletics Centre) – had suffered from diabetes mellitus for three years and was on the Allen Starvation regime. He told Mellanby that he had two choices: to die from starvation or in a diabetic coma. Insulin made in the Physiology Department restored him to health; his ‘thank you’ card to Mellanby is likely to be the earliest surviving record of insulin therapy given to a patient in this country. With its origins Penicillin stretching back to The first documented use of penicillin as a therapy was carried out in Sheffield in 1930 by Cecil George 1828, the Medical Paine, a member of the Pathology Department. He treated eye infections in two babies with a crude School has a proud filtrate from a penicillin-producing mould supplied by Alexander Fleming, his lecturer when he studied medicine at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, track record of London. Fleming had published details of his fundamental discovery of penicillin as an antibacterial discovery and agent in 1929, but its therapeutic potential had not been much pursued. Paine did, however, mention his innovation. Sheffield An X-ray of the legs of a child with rickets. findings to Fleming and to Howard Florey, then (Photo: Wellcome Library, London) The Scala Cinema on Brook Hill, Professor of Pathology (1932–35) at the Sheffield purchased by the University in 1952 to has been the focus provide Hans Krebs with the extra Medical School. Florey went on, with a team at Oxford, laboratory space he needed. It was located next to the new Chemistry to purify penicillin; doubtless Paine’s work helped of many outstanding building and demolished in 1969. convince him of its medical potential. Fleming, Ernst Boris Chain and Florey received the Nobel Prize for breakthroughs in Physiology/Medicine in 1945 ‘for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious medical research diseases’. The importance of Paine’s ‘significant part in the penicillin story’ did not become apparent until over the decades, 1986 when Dr Milton Wainwright (Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology) and Dr Harold Swan (Medical School) published their article, which have had ‘C.G. Paine and the earliest surviving clinical records profound effects in of penicillin therapy’, in Medical History . this country and across the world. Krebs cycle Hans Krebs came to the University as Lecturer in Pharmacology in 1935. He was a German Jewish refugee The treatment of diabetes mellitus: who had already discovered the ornithine (urea) cycle at graph showing the blood sugar reaction Freiburg before being forced to flee the country in 1933. He to ingestion of 100 grams of glucose (Miles and Fowler, Edinburgh Medical found a temporary home in Cambridge before being invited Edward Mellanby Journal , November 1921). (Photo: to Sheffield, where he was to stay for 19 years. In 1937, aided (Photo: Wellcome Library, London) Wellcome Library, London) by his postgraduate student William Arthur Johnson, he discovered the citric acid cycle (the Krebs cycle) – the chemical reactions during respiration which convert glucose Rickets and oxygen into carbon dioxide, water and energy. Although his work was closely related to pharmacology, Krebs was in Rickets was the subject allotted to Edward Mellanby as a essence a research biochemist. In recognition of this, the research topic by the Medical Research Committee in the new Department of Biochemistry was created for him in days immediately before the World War I. In 1918, working at 1938 and he became Professor in 1945. He received the Cecil George Paine King's College for Women, London, he provided conclusive Nobel Prize for Medicine/Physiology in 1953, was knighted evidence that rickets is a dietary deficiency disease due to The citric acid cycle five years later and received an honorary degree (DSc) from lack of a fat-soluble vitamin (D). He was appointed as the the University of Sheffield in 1959. first Professor of Pharmacology at Sheffield and consultant (the Krebs cycle) A Petri dish culture of Penicillium notatum. physician at the Royal Infirmary in 1920. He established a “Krebs himself has been heard to say that scientific research (Photo: Wellcome Library, London) field laboratory at Lodge Moor, and it was here that he is like an aeroplane, which must attain a certain impetus demonstrated that cereals, in an unbalanced diet, produced The first documented before it can leave the ground. None would deny that he rickets due to the phytic acid content reducing the himself took off.” availability of calcium. He went on to contribute to use of penicillin as THIS BOARD IS PART OF THE Extract from the Public Orator’s speech when experiments which demonstrated the ways in which MEDICAL SCHOOL HERITAGE presenting Hans Krebs for his honorary degree. vitamins in food were essential to healthy growth. PROJECT 2012.  a therapy Scan the QR code for further details on the Faculty web pages. “…if we listen with mixed feelings when he hymns the praise See also: of the succulent juice of the codfish, it i s not the least of Professor Mellanby’s distinctions that, unlike most of his The cure for childhood Timeline: brother physicians, he makes a habit of taking his own medicine.” rickets B floor entrance Extract from the Public Orator’s speech when presenting Edward Mellanby for his honorary degree. Mellanby Room: The earliest surviving Seminar Room 2 record of insulin therapy Florey Room: Seminar Room 6