Enduring history of a fraud
Abderhalden's fraud still wins him some supporters : Article : Nature
In this week's Correspondence pages of Nature (see above link for full text), U. Kutschera of the Univeristy of Kassel reminds readers that an old case of fraud is still being ignored in some quarters. From the Correspondence:
"Your Misconduct Special (Nature 445, 240–245; 2007) calls South Korean stem-cell biologist Woo Suk Hwang "arguably the highest-profile fraudster ever". A look into the history of fraud in the biomedical sciences reveals at least one other strong candidate for this title.
In the area of human reproductive biology, the Korean scandal is overshadowed by the case of the influential German physiologist Emil Abderhalden (1877–1950) and the non-existent Abwehrfermente or 'defence enzymes' he claimed to have discovered. The shocking story of his fraudulent work, over a long period, has been told by Ute Deichmann and Benno Müller-Hill (Nature 393, 109–111; 1998).
Briefly, Abderhalden — a powerful and influential scientist — published a first paper on his "most important discovery" in 1909, and a widely read and translated book on the subject followed in 1912 (E. Abderhalden Abwehrfermente: Die Abderhaldensche Reaktion Theodor Steinkopff, 7th edn, 1944). The 'Abderhalden reaction' was used as a pregnancy test, and to treat various diseases. From 1914 on, biochemists tried to repeat Abderhalden's experiments, but failed to achieve this. A number of experts published their negative findings, but Abderhalden continued to publish fabricated data until his death."
Prof. Kutschera concludes: "Worst of all, Abderhalden's myth is still alive. For instance, on the German site of the Internet encyclopaedia Wikipedia, Emil Abderhalden was until this year listed as an "important physiologist and discoverer of the specific Abderhaldensche Abwehrfermente — he developed the first pregnancy test". Similar admiring descriptions can still be found in the latest editions of German lexica such as Die Zeit: Das Lexikon 2005 . The authors refer to Abderhalden's book, which remains available in libraries and second-hand, and is still taken seriously in the popular literature on biomedicine."
Comments
Sir- Nature of March 8, 2007 on its Correspondence page has a Letter with the title: "Abderhalden's fraud still wins him some supporters".
In the context of the fraud perpetrated by the Korean stem cell biologist Woo Suck Wang, it discusses a fraud perpetrated by the German physiologist Emil Abderhalden concerning a "non-existent" class of enzymes Abderhalden called "defense enzymes".
As a hard working graduate student at Columbia University in the 1950s, I, too, was a victim of Abderhalden's unreliability. At that time, in the laboratory of Professor Erwin Brand, I was engaged in developing new approaches toward the synthesis of polypeptides. Among the procedures on which I had to rely were several published by Abderhalden and his co-workers. To my dismay I could not repeat many of them. I was afraid to reveal my frustrations to my very German mentor for fear of being dismissed from the laboratory and the graduate program, at a time when my wife and I were expecting
our first child. But finally, I had to do so.
To my relief, Professor Brand was neither angry nor surprised. In fact he advised me that it was not an uncommon occurrence. When I asked him whether Abderhalden's published procedures were always impossible to repeat, his answer was: "No. He is not that reliable."
Bernard F. Erlanger, Ph.D.
Department of Microbiology
Columbia University
701 West 168 Street
New York, N.Y. 10032
Posted by: Bernard F. Erlanger | March 20, 2007 04:10 PM
I write in response to the letter entitled "Abderhaden's fraud still wins him some supporters" (Nature 446, 136: 2007). While I largely agree with the criticism of German physiologist Emil Abderhalden in Dr Kutschera's correspondence, some elaboration and clarification is needed.
Emil Abderhalden's inclusion in German scientific and medical databases and his apparent sustained respectibility with a segment of the contemporary German scientific establishment is clearly not because a majority (or even a minority) of contemporary German scientists believe in Abderhalden's so-called Abwehrfermente ('defence enzymes'). Only a deluded German romantic (of which, unfortunately, there were a great many within the German scientific community during the Weimar and Nazi periods) would long for the days of Abwehrfermente and Nietzschean rassische Ueberlegenheit (racial consciousness).
Emil Abderhalden's inclusion in the list of honoured founders of physiological chemistry (as biochemistry was known then) is not entirely without merit. Abderhalden's
textbooks and treatises on physiological chemistry such as Lehrbuch der Physiologischen Chemie in 37 Vorlesungen are classic scientific works that are based largely on known and accepted experimental evidence at the time.
A good portion of Abderhalden's scientific reasoning regarding metabolism in animals and even primitive concepts of enzyme action and function would hold up to
scientific scrutiny today, though his belief and self-promotion of Abwehrfermente clearly strains scientific credulity. This might explain why, among modern-day German biochemists, there is some respect for his earlier work, though obviously taken with a grain or two of salt. While Emil Fischer and Louis Pasteur were not, to the best of our knowledge, fraudsters, they were not always correct either in their scientific assumptions. We do not respect them less because they were often in error, but more so because they were motivated by altruism.
Thus, while the baby's bathwater might not be pleasing to the eyes or mouth, we need not dispose of the infant along with it. A better analogy might be: We might not (today) approve of Richard Wagner's neo-romantic and clearly ridiculous notions of Saxon and Visigothic pagan mystical origins in some supposed Aryan-based Central Asian Nestorian tradition, but need we censor his music in the process because of his lunacy ?
I think the statement that Emil Abderhalden was an "important physiologist" is still valid today, though we might examine and even question his personal motivations. In doing so, we should look to the most authoritative book on this subject: "Medizin und Moral in Weimarer Republik und Nationalsozialismus: Die Zeitschrift "Ethik" unter Emil Abderhalden" (Andreas Frewer; Campus Verlag, Berlin 2000) or Medicine and Morals in the Weimar Republick and in National Socialism: The Profession of Ethics under Emil Abderhalden.
Peter Cohen
Honolulu, Hawaii
Posted by: Peter Cohen | April 2, 2007 06:04 PM