British Journal of Radiology (2008) 81, 989
© 2008 British Institute of Radiology
doi:
British Journal of Radiology 81 (2008),989 ©2008 The British Institute of Radiology
Happy accidents: serendipity in modern medical breakthroughs. When scientists find what they're NOT looking for. Edited by M A Meyers. pp. 390, 2007 (Arcade, New York, NY). $29.95 ISBN: 978-1-55970-819-7
Morton Meyers will be familiar to many radiologists for his pioneering investigations and contributions in the field of gastrointestinal imaging. In this book, Morton Meyers enthuses over the myriad of medical discoveries throughout the generations and his prime thesis is that a large number of these discoveries were not made by scientists toiling away on a predestined path to future knowledge but purely by chance. Meyers quotes Thomas Kuhn's important book from 1962 "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" where Kuhn described the concept of a paradigm shift, which has played such a great role in scientific creativity. Chance seems to have played a huge role in a myriad of medical concepts.
In the field of bacteriology, Robert Koch made the chance observation that resulted in a change in the way bacteria could be cultured. We are all familiar of course with Alexandra Fleming's career and are aware of the important role that chance played in the discovery of penicillin.
In the field of imaging, chance too seems to have played a major role. For instance, Mason Sones — the paediatric cardiologist who pioneered coronary angiography — only did so by chance. Apparently it was not his initial intention to flip the catheter into the patient's coronary artery and the first time this happened Sones feared a cardiac arrest. Yet within a decade, Sones and his team had performed over 8000 coronary angiograms, and cardiology has never looked back. Similarly, Charles Dotter, who was working in Oregon, pioneered the unblocking of blocked arteries using wires and catheters. This was initially known as Dottering and again was a procedure developed by chance when Dotter unintentionally managed to jam a catheter through a blocked segment of an artery. This of course resulted in the unblocking of vessels and led to the development of angioplasty.
Serendipity seems to have played a part in a large number of medical discoveries, as illustrated in this volume. These have ranged from discoveries in cancer treatment to psychiatry. This book is an entertaining and informative read and particularly useful are the notes section and references at the end, which enable the interested reader to delve more deeply into the topics. This is a fascinating book that would be of great interest not only to doctors but interested readers in general, who will be taken on a journey behind the scenes of some of the major medical discoveries. Meyers has comprehensively covered the role of chance and serendipity in modern medical breakthroughs in this volume. I will end with a pertinent quote from Meyer's book attributed to Louis Pasteur, "Chance favours only the prepared mind"; the next generation of pioneers would do well to heed this advice and not leave everything to luck!
A K BANERJEE
