Albert Szent-Gyorgyi: the Art in Being Wrong
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
sion, intelligence, and wit. He once Past and Present described his technique this way: I make the wildest theories, con- necting up the test tube reactions with the broadest philosophical Albert Szent-Gyorgyi: ideas, but I spend most of my time in the laboratory, playing with living matter, keeping my eyes open, observing and pursuing the The Art in Being Wrong smallest detail — Usually some- thing crops up. some small dis- crepancy which, if followed "n, When Dr. Albert Szent G^rgyi goes ogy. He is hopeful that his study of may lead to basic discoveries. The fishing in the waters around Woods the failure of malignant cells to re- theories serve to satisfy the mind, Hole, Massachusetts, he fixes a gar- constitute healthy submolecular prepare it for 'an accident' and gantuan hook to his line, explaining structures will one day throw new keep one going. I must admit that that "it is far more exciting not to light on the nature of the disease. most of the new observations I catch a big fish than not to catch a That is the work he projects for his made were based on wrong theo- small one." tenth decade. ries. My theories collapsed, but In a career that has spanned He operates on insight and on something was left afterward. most of the twentieth century, this the hunches that come to him as biochemist, now in his eighty-ninth he fingers the instruments in his It has been 45 years since Albert year, still pursues with the passion of laboratory. For him, science has al- Szent-Gyorgyi received a Nobel Captain Ahab the grandest and often ways been an art involving the in- prize for studies of cellular respira- the most elusive of objectives. Those terplay of sensory perceptions, pas- tion and for isolating the substance he has already attained are far more than enough to satisfy most people: those that have escaped him have usually proved to be such beguiling chimeras as to inspire whole generations of re- searchers. A brash young man at Cambridge University who once tried to dis- parage "the Prof," as Szent-Gyorgyi is affectionately known, was gently but firmly put down by the re- nowned parasitologist David Keilin, who told him, "I much prefer the stimulating ideas of Szent-Gyorgyi, even when he is wrong, to the dull correct ones advanced by most others." Now somewhat grizzled and crag- gy as a weather-beaten cliff, Szent- Gyorgyi still drives daily the mile or so from his home to the Marine Bi- ological Laboratories—that work- shop, proving ground, and nursery of science on the shore where Cape Cod begins. He gave up his motor- cycle when he was 85 and water- skis only occasionally now. It is a The figures of this paper are not reproduced. sport he took up on his eightieth There are about 10000 pictures given with a GOOGLE picture search birthday. for “albert szent gyorgyi” Currently, Szent-Gyorgyi is busily seeking an explanation of cancer in the Albert Szent-Gyorgyi is perhaps best known for his work on the muscle protein com- unexplored world of quantum plex, actomyosin. His 1937 Nobel prize was for the discovery of titamin C and for mechanics and submolecular biol- his pioneering explorations of mechanisms of cellular respiration. H Hospital Practice May 1982 179 that became known as ascorbic art, and all things intellectual, to of Uncle Michael's advice, devoted acid, vitamin C. the proud neglect of commercial his first scientific paper to the His subsequent work, always values. Religion was rarely dis- epithelium of the anus. characterized by his talent at play- cussed. Mrs. Szent-Gyorgyi was "an In time, his uncle encouraged Al- ing creatively with living matter, enlightened agnostic," her son re- bert to rise into the lofty precincts led him to discover the proteins of calls, "who would go to church only of histology, but by his third year of muscle contraction and, for the when her boys were in trouble, so medical school, Albert became dis- first time, to demonstrate the in- that she could bribe St. Peter with enchanted with that discipline. teraction of actin and myosin in a florin to lobby for her." Uncle Michael or no. "Morphology vitro. The Lenhosseks wove science and told me little about life," he re- It is the same appetite to under- music into a family tradition. His called. He was considering a change stand the cell in a^l its workings mother sang, and his maternal to physiology, when the Austrian that has carried him past the fa- grandfather and great grandfather, Archduke was shot, throwing Eu- miliar landscape of molecular biol- who had been professors of anato- rope into war and Albert into uni- ogy into the submolecular, the elec- my and physiology in Vienna, also form. tronic. Colleagues, even when they played at least one instrument. Al- He served in the medical corps, are critical, do not scoff at the pos- bert admits that he must have and 65 years later still recalls with sibility that he may be right in been a dreadful disappointment. keen satisfaction that "there was maintaining that cancer is not He loved music but showed no ap- never any need for me to kill." He many diseases but one and that it titude in performance. "I do not was sent to the Italian front and can be understood electronically. have the gift," he says sadly. His then north to the Austrian slice of He has been as consistent and as older brother, Paul, outshown him Poland. He was awarded the Silver indefatigable in politics as in sci- scientifically and musically in the Medal for Valor but waves away all ence. He has used his prestige and early grades. "The fact is," this questions of how he won it. "Noth- his pen to oppose tyranny and war. Nobel laureate confesses, "I must ing special," he says. As the war His battles, whether scientific or have been a very dull child. Nothing dragged on, the slaughter seemed political, have always been fought happened to me." doubly futile with the seeming cer- with gusto and sometimes with a With a little help from tutors, he tainty of defeat. He yearned for a disarming directness that his crit- squeaked by in his examinations, wound that would send him home ics have mistaken for naivete. but his record depressed Uncle Mi- to his studies. When the enemy This life of challenge, adventure, chael Lenhossek, who had been failed to oblige, he shot himself in and misadventure began in the something of a child prodigy and the arm and returned to Budapest. peaceful setting of a pedigreed Hun- was then a celebrated histologist. It There he finished his medical garian family whose title of petty was to him and not to her husband courses and was awarded his doc- nobility dated to the seventeenth that Albert's mother turned for ad- toral degree. century. It was a family of comfor- vice on the education of boys. Mi- With the war still on. he resumed table respectability, generally well chael viewed Albert's prospects in national service in the army's bac- represented on the bench and in science as exceedingly dim. teriological laboratories. Almost the ministries of the Austro-Hun- In early adolescence, however, immediately, he tangled with his garian Monarchy. Here and there, a young Albert's habits took an superiors over risky experiments of maverick spiced the lineage, such abrupt turn. Suddenly he showed dubious value that were being per- as an earlier Szent-Gyorgyi who an omnivorous appetite for books formed on Italian prisoners of war. joined the doomed revolution of of all sorts and seemed to be devel- His protests won him an assign- 1848. oping a late-blooming passion for ment to a zone of malarial swamps Into this solid family there was science. Uncle Michael, not entirely in northern Italy, from which he born on September 16. 1893. a convinced by this sudden change, was saved, in a matter of weeks, by boy who was given the ponderous came to consider a possible career the collapse of the Central Powers. name of Albert Szent-Gyorgyi von in something elementary, like the He returned to Budapest and mar- Nagyrapolt—the last bit a piece of concoction of cosmetics. As Albert's ried Cordelia Demeny, the charm- aristocratic baggage that he record improved. Uncle Michael ing daughter of the Postmaster dropped very early in life. thought he might aspire to dentis- General, an official whom Albert He tends to dismiss his father. try, and as the boy's high school remembers fondly as a man of Nicolaus. as a man totally preoccu- grades positively soared, he sug- "good social feelings" rare in a bu- pied with his role as a semifeudal gested a modest career in medi- reaucrat. landholder. The family style was set cine—perhaps proctology. Defeat brought to Hungary six by the lady of the house, Josefine In due course, Albert received the months of a fierce Communist cru- Lenhossek. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi avuncular blessing allowing him to sade under Bela Kun. For part of unhesitatingly credits his mother apply for entry into the University that time, the newly licensed Dr. and her side of the family with in- of Budapest Medical School. In his Szent-Gyorgyi was working at a culcating him with a love of science. freshman year, Albert, ever mindful pharmacological laboratory in what 180 Hospital Practice May 1982 was then the Hungarian city of returning to Hungary after serving Pozsony.