Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1978. július-december (32. évfolyam, 27-50. szám)
1978-10-05 / 38. szám
Thursday, Oct. 5. 1978. AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZÓ THE STORY OF MY LIFE - BY DR SZENTGYÖRGYI The Education of Prof. Szentgyörgyi Dr. Szent-Gyorgyi’s undergraduate education was in his native Hungary where he received his M.D. from the University of Budapest in 1917. By 1927, when he took his Ph.D. at Cambridge he was already involved in a notable career in studies of basic biologic processes. He refers to Cambridge, England as his “Scientific homeland”. His work on ascorbig acid, however, was truly an international scientific odyssey. In Kendall’s laboratory at the Mayo Clinic he spent a year concentrating about twenty grams of the substance from adrenal glands; his find of one of the richest natural sources of vitamin C, pap- nka, took place in Hungary in 1931. Heritage is privileged to publish the autobiographical account of a physician who is as brilliant as he is unorthodox, as informal as he is adventurous, and as friendly as he is forthright, Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi. /His name is pronounced “sent» gi-or’ gi”, according to Who‘s Who./ The man who says he “found ascorbic acid by accident and never reallv was interested in it” won the Nobel prize for medicine and physiology in 1937. “What would I wish for Hungary, you ask. Every nation wishes to be great. Hungary is a small country. Therefore its greatness must come from achievements other than it’s size, achievements marked by splendid contributions to science, to humanism, to the development of permanent peace in the world.” From a television interview in Budapest, where Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Nobel Prize Laureate, returned after an absence of 32 years. It is said that our education begins before we are born. On my mother’s side I am the fourth generation of scientists from whom I have inherited my love of science. On my father’s side I come from a line of devoted public servants from whom I have learned to do what seems to be right in my own light, regardless of the consequences to myself. Living through troubled times, this made my life very perturbed. “ A RETARDED CHILD” I must have been a very dull youth who started to develop late, after puberty, with the unhappy result that I was looked upon in my family as a retarded child. So when, at 16, I declared my intent to become a scientist, I met intense opposition. My uncle, a noted histologist, who was the intellectual head of my family, thought that I, at best, could make a living only in cosmetics. Later he relented and admitted the possibility of my becoming'a dentist. He consented to my matriculation at the medical school under the condition that I become a proctologist, a specialist of the diseases of the anus. He had hemorrhoids himself. All the same, he admitted me to his laboratory thus enabling me to start research as a freshman. My first paper was about the structure of the anus. I started science on the wrong end. “MUDDLING WITH MOLECULES” I After three years of research in histology I became dissatisfied with dead systems which told me nothing about life. I had to choose between biolog)' and physiology. At that time, if one worked on spiders, one was a biologist; if one worked on rabbits, one was a physiologist. I became a physiologist, but soon found the rabbit too complex for my simple mind, so I shifted to pharmacology, drugs being simpler. A drug is a substance which, if injected into a rabbit, produces a paper /O.Loewi/. The drugs were simpler but the rabbit remained the same. Searching for simplicity, I took up bacteriology. To my grief, I soon found bacteria to be a whole universe, much too complex for me, so I started muddling with molecules and was eventually condemned to professor of medical chemistry. Later I found molecules too complex... Looking at this muddled career with hindsight, I can see a plan. My problem was: was the hypothetical creator an anatomist, physiologist, chemist, or mathematician? My conclusion is that he had to be all of it, and so if we want to follow his trail, we must have a grasp of all sides of nature. Jumping from one science to the other, I had a rather individual method. I did not, try to acquire a theoretical knowledge before starting to work. I went straight to the laboratory, cooked up some senseless theory, and started to disprove it. I went to the library only if I had to get some specific information. Not long ago, 1 read a book which said that if one wants to be a scientist, one has to start with locking oneself up in a library for a year or so. I think that if at the end of that y'ear one comes out alive, one is unfit for research. (Cont. on page 9.) ____ 7 A REVIEW OF ART; LITERATURE AND HISTORY - A SUPPLEMENT OF THE MAGYAR SZO m.. .....mumii - - - - uni————........
