Category: Books

Forssmann’s Courage Rewarded with “Professional Criticism and Scorn”

(p. 197) Forssmann’s report in the leading German medical journal garnered him not hosannas but instead fierce professional criticism and scorn. In response to a senior physician who claimed undocumented priority for the procedure, the twenty-five-year-old Forssmann was forced to provide an addendum to his publication one month later. Rigid dogmatism and an authoritarian hierarchy characterized the German medicine of that day. The human heart, as the center of life, was considered inviolable by instrumentation and surgery.

Source:
Meyers, Morton A. Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2007.

Edison Claimed an Inventor Needs “a Logical Mind that Sees Analogies”

(p. C3) Thomas Edison famously said that genius requires “1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Edison’s third criterion for would-be innovators is less well-known but perhaps even more vital: “a logical mind that sees analogies.”
. . .
The art of analogy flows from creative re-categorization and the information that we extract from surprising sources. Take the invention of the moving assembly line. Credit for this breakthrough typically goes to Henry Ford, but it was actually the brainchild of a young Ford mechanic named Bill Klann. After watching butchers at a meatpacking plant disassemble carcasses moving past them along an overhead trolley, Klann thought that auto workers could assemble cars through a similar process by adding pieces to a chassis moving along rails.
Overcoming significant management skepticism, Klann and his cohorts built a moving assembly line. Within four months, Ford’s line had cut the time it took to build a Model T from 12 hours per vehicle to just 90 minutes. In short order, the moving assembly line revolutionized manufacturing and unlocked trillions of dollars in economic potential. And while in retrospect this innovation may seem like a simple, obvious step forward, it wasn’t; the underlying analogy between moving disassembly and moving assembly had eluded everyone until Klann grasped its potential.

For the full essay, see:
JOHN POLLACK. “Four Ways to Innovate through Analogies; Many of history’s most important breakthroughs were made by seeing analogies–for example, how a plane is like a bike.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Nov. 8, 2014): C3.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the essay has the date Nov. 7, 2014, and has the title “Four Ways to Innovate through Analogies; Many of history’s most important breakthroughs were made by seeing analogies–for example, how a plane is like a bike.”)

The passages quoted above are related to Pollack’s book:
Pollack, John. Shortcut: How Analogies Reveal Connections, Spark Innovation, and Sell Our Greatest Ideas. New York, NY: Gotham Books, 2014.

Denied Approval to Catheterize Hearts, Forssmann Catheterized His Own

(p. 195) Forssmann received his medical degree from the University of Berlin in 1929. That year, he interned at a small hospital northwest of Berlin, the Auguste-Viktoria-Heim in Eberswalde. He pleaded with his superiors for approval to try a new procedure–to inject drugs directly into the heart–but was unable to persuade them of his new concept’s validity. Undaunted, Forssmann proceeded on his own. His goal was to improve upon the administration of drugs into the central circulation during emergency operations.
The circumstances of the incident on November 5, 1929, revealed by Forssmann in his autobiography, could hardly have been (p. 196) more dramatic. The account reflects Forssmann’s dogged determination, willpower, and extraordinary courage. He gained the trust of the surgical nurse who provided access to the necessary instruments. So carried away by Forssmann’s vision, she volunteered herself to undergo the experiment. Pretending to go along with her, Forssmann strapped her down to the table in a small operating room while his colleagues took their afternoon naps. When she wasn’t looking, he anesthetized his own left elbow crease. Once the local anesthetic took effect, Forssmann quickly performed a surgical cutdown to expose his vein and boldly manipulated a flexible ureteral catheter 30 cm toward his heart. This thin sterile rubber tubing used by urologists to drain urine from the kidney was 65 cm long (about 26 inches). He then released the angry nurse.
They walked down two flights of stairs to the X-ray department, where he fearlessly advanced the catheter into the upper chamber (atrium) on the right side of his heart, following its course on a fluoroscopic screen with the aid of a mirror held by the nurse. (Fluoroscopy is an X-ray technique whereby movement of a body organ, an introduced dye, or a catheter within the body can be followed in real time.) He documented his experiment with an X-ray film. Forssmann was oblivious to the danger of abnormal, potentially fatal heart rhythms that can be provoked when anything touches the sensitive endocardium, the inside lining of the heart chambers.

Source:
Meyers, Morton A. Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2007.

Lippmann Attacked FDR’s Socialist National Industrial Recovery Act

(p. A13) . . . Duke economic historian Craufurd D. Goodwin employs the writings of the once-famous newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann to describe the fervid U.S. debates that began with the 1929 stock-market crash.
. . .
Lippmann established his intellectual credentials in the 1920s, writing several well-received books. They included “Public Opinion,” which excoriated the press for sloppy coverage of government policies and actions. The book is often seen as a call for top-down rule by experts, but Mr. Goodwin argues that Lippmann had something else in mind–that he was eager for expert opinion and “reasoned study” to be widely disseminated so that self-government would be more fully informed and the citizenry less easily manipulated.
. . .
At first, Lippmann embraced the Keynesian argument that government could ameliorate downswings in business cycles through deficit spending, but he later had second thoughts about economic engineering and became more attuned to the free-market ideas of Friedrich Hayek, whom he knew and consulted.   . . .    Lippmann attacked as ill-conceived the most ambitious New Deal brainstorm, the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act, which attempted to organize all business and industry into cartels to boost prices.

For the full review, see:
GEORGE MELLOAN. “BOOKSHELF; The Umpire of American Public Debate; Certain that a return of investment confidence would restore prosperity, Lippmann criticized those that blamed Wall Street for the malaise.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Oct. 14, 2014): A13.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Oct. 13, 2014, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; Walter Lippmann: Umpire of American Public Debate; Certain that a return of investment confidence would restore prosperity, Lippmann criticized those that blamed Wall Street for the malaise.”)

The book under review, is:
Goodwin, Craufurd D. Walter Lippmann: Public Economist. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.

Major Cancer Drugs Have Come from Unexpected Sources

(p. 182) Starting in the last decades of the twentieth century, last decades of the twentieth century, sophisticated genetics and molecular biology have been aimed toward a more precise understanding of the cell’s mechanisms. Yet, even here, chance has continued to be a big factor. Surprising discoveries led to uncovering cancer-inducing genes (oncogenes) and tumor-suppressing genes, both of which are normal cellular genes that, when mutated, can induce a biological effect that predisposes the cell to cancer development. A search for blood substitutes led to anti-angiogenesis drugs. Veterinary medicine led to oncogenes and vaccine preparations to tumor-suppressor genes. In one of the greatest serendipitous discoveries of (p. 183) modern medicine, stem cells were stumbled upon during research on radiation effects on the blood.
Experience has clearly shown that major cancer drugs have been discovered by independent, thoughtful, and self-motivated researchers–the cancer war’s “guerrillas,” to use the reigning metaphor–from unexpected sources: from chemical warfare (nitrogen mustard), nutritional research (methotrexate), medicinal folklore (the vinca alkaloids), bacteriologic research (cisplatin), biochemistry research (sex hormones), blood storage research (angiogenic inhibitors), clinical observations (COX-2 inhibitors), and embryology (thalidomide).

Source:
Meyers, Morton A. Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2007.

Affordable Care Act Reduces GDP, Employment and Labor Income

(p. A17) Whether the Affordable Care Act lives up to its name depends on how, or whether, you consider its consequences for the wider economy.
. . .
I estimate that the ACA’s long-term impact will include about 3% less weekly employment, 3% fewer aggregate work hours, 2% less GDP and 2% less labor income. These effects will be visible and obvious by 2017, if not before. The employment and hours estimates are based on the combined amount of the law’s new taxes and disincentives and on historical research on the aggregate effects of each dollar of taxation. The GDP and income estimates reflect lower amounts of labor as well as the law’s effects on the productivity of each hour of labor.
. . .
The Affordable Care Act is weakening the economy. And for the large number of families and individuals who continue to pay for their own health care, health care is now less affordable.

For the full commentary, see:
CASEY B. MULLIGAN. “OPINION; The Myth of ObamaCare’s Affordability; The law’s perverse incentives will have the nation working fewer hours, and working those hours less productively.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., SEPTEMBER 9, 2014): A17.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date SEPTEMBER 8, 2014.)

Mulligan’s research on the effects of Obamacare is detailed in his Kindle e-book:
Mulligan, Casey B. Side Effects: The Economic Consequences of the Health Reform. Flossmoor, IL: JMJ Economics, 2014.

Robert Morris Financed the Revolutionary War, and Private Ventures, But Ended in Debtors’ Prison

(p. C7) The Philadelphia merchant banker Robert Morris, reputedly the richest man in Revolutionary America, performed prodigies in financing the war and then staving off the new country’s insolvency. He was bullish on America’s future, and when he returned to private life in 1784, he initiated a variety of ventures–a fleet of ships trading with China and India, multiple manufacturing enterprises, and, not least, vast assemblages of unimproved interior land–that eventually landed him in debtors’ prison. Ryan K. Smith offers a readable and enlightening portrait of this busy and turbulent life in “Robert Morris’s Folly.”

For the full review, see:
CHARLES R. MORRIS. “Financing the Founders; Morris built a French-style palace out of Pennsylvania logs in the hope that Marie Antoinette would visit.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., AUG. 30, 2014): C7.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date AUG. 29, 2014, and has the title “Book Review: ‘Robert Morris’s Folly’ by Ryan K. Smith; Robert Morris built a French-style palace out of Pennsylvania logs in the hope that Marie Antoinette would visit.”)

The book being reviewed is:
Smith, Ryan K. Robert Morris’s Folly: The Architectural and Financial Failures of an American Founder, The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014.

Steelcase Designs Quiet Space for Introverts to Think

(p. D2) Introverts’ nervous systems are more sensitive to stimulation than extroverts’ are, according to Susan Cain, author of “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.”
“When introverts get too much stimulation, they feel overwhelmed and jangled,” she said.
With no privacy or way to shield themselves from the commotion, introverts, estimated to make up one-third to one-half of the population, can feel exposed in the modern workplace. Being on display is imposing and distracting to them, Cain said.
Office furniture maker Steelcase Inc. is trying to give the left-behind introverts some love. Its new set of “quiet spaces,” designed in collaboration with Cain, aims to help introverts relax and focus away from the eyes of their coworkers.
. . .
Part of Steelcase’s pitch to potential customers: this is a talent issue. Why spend so much time and money recruiting employees if they can’t focus and work well in your space?

For the full story, see:
RACHEL FEINTZEIG. “How to Avoid that Sinking Feeling When in the Fish Bowl.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., June 3, 2014): D2.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date June 2, 2014, and has the title “For Office Introverts, a Room of One’s Own.”)

The book mentioned in the passage quoted is:
Cain, Susan. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. New York: Crown, 2012.

FDR Ruthlessly Manipulated Political Process

(p. D8) Michael C. Janeway, a former editor of The Boston Globe and executive editor of The Atlantic Monthly who wrote two books chronicling what he saw as the intertwined decline of democracy and journalism in the United States, died on Thursday [April 17, 2014] at his home in Lakeville, Conn.
. . .
The second book, “The Fall of the House of Roosevelt: Brokers of Ideas and Power From FDR to LBJ,” published in 2004, measured some of the ideas in his first book against the history of the New Deal. It focused on President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inner circle of advisers, a group of political operatives and thinkers often called Roosevelt’s “brain trust,” who helped conceive ideas like the minimum wage, Social Security and federal bank deposit insurance.
Mr. Janeway’s father, Eliot Janeway, an economist, Democratic hand and columnist for Time magazine (a portfolio not unheard-of in those days), was a prominent member of that group.
Michael Janeway suggested that in undertaking the radical changes necessary to yank the “shattered American capitalist system into regulation and reform,” Roosevelt and his team manipulated the political process with a level of ruthlessness that may have been justified by the perils of the times. But in the years that followed, he wrote, the habit of guile and highhandedness devolved into the kind of arrogance that defined — and doomed — the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, Roosevelt’s last political heir.

For the full obituary, see:
PAUL VITELLO. “Michael Janeway, 73, Former Editor of The Boston Globe.” The New York Times (Sat., APRIL 19, 2014): D8.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the obituary has title “Michael Janeway, Former Editor of The Boston Globe, Dies at 73.”)

The book mentioned in the passage quoted above is:
Janeway, Michael. The Fall of the House of Roosevelt: Brokers of Ideas and Power from FDR to LBJ, Columbia Studies in Contemporary American History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.

Shetl Golden Age Ended When “Russia Repurposed Shtetl Jews as Scapegoats”

(p. 15) Smuggling looms large not only in the economy of Petrovsky-Shtern’s shtetl but for its symbolism, too. The author is interested in the way aspects of one world slide inside another. His golden-age shtetl was born when Russia swallowed a giant slice of Poland at the end of the 18th century and went from having few Jews to overseeing vast numbers of them, many of whom lived in privately owned Polish towns.
These towns are the essential ingredients of the hybrid world Petrovsky-Shtern is celebrating. Polish nobles had permitted Jews to live there on the condition that they ran the outdoor markets, sold liquor and in general acted as engines of trade. When the towns fell under Russian rule, Jews retained many of their economic privileges while expanding their civil rights, especially after they displayed a willingness to inform on their erstwhile Polish overlords.
Shtetl dwellers became adept at playing the declining Polish nobility off against bribable Russian officials. The czar had not yet laid his heavy hand on the trade by which shtetl Jews powered the economic growth of western Russia. Neither had he made nationalism the supreme ideology and Eastern Orthodoxy synonymous with Russian nationalism.
That would come, and as the Russian treasury bought up more and more of the private towns and trade died, Russia repurposed shtetl Jews as scapegoats for a restive peasant population.

For the full review, see:
JONATHAN ROSEN. “World of Our Great-Grandfathers.” The New York Times Book Review (Sun., July 27, 2014): 15.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date July 25, 2014.)

The book under review is:
Petrovsky-Shtern, Yohanan. The Golden Age Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014.

“Folkman Persisted in His Genuinely Original Thinking”

(p. 141) As detailed by Robert Cooke in his 2001 book Dr. Folkman’s War, the successful answers to these basic questions took Folkman through diligent investigations punctuated by an astonishing series of chance observations and circumstances. Over decades, Folkman persisted in his genuinely original thinking. His concept was far in advance of technological and other scientific advances that would provide the methodology and basic knowledge essential to its proof, forcing him to await verification and to withstand ridicule, scorn, and vicious competition for grants. Looking back three decades later, Folkman would ruefully reflect: “I was too young to realize how much trouble was in store for a theory that could not be tested immediately.”

Source:
Meyers, Morton A. Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2007.
(Note: italics in original.)