than the other prize-giving committees, because of the intricate nature of medical research. There are so many varied specialties. There is so much complexity. Consequently, when the candidates are narrowed down by the committee, one last step is necessary. Each candidate is turned over to a member of our faculty, who is an expert in the candidate’s field. The expert or investigator makes a thorough study of the candidate’s discovery. Is it complete? Is it proved? Is it new? Is it worth while? The investigator will read everything on the discovery, and seek opinions, and sometimes even travel to the homeland of the-of the-uhhh-candidate, to see for himself without giving away the-uhhh-reasons for his visit.
‘When Ivan Pavlov was nominated for the first award in 1901, for his experiments in the physiology of digestion, two of our investigators, the great Professor Johansson and Professor Tigerstedt, travelled to St. Petersburg, in Russia, to meet Pavlov and his dogs and verify, firsthand, his accomplishments. Pavlov was given special attention, too, because it was known that-uhhh-Alfred Nobel himself had been interested in the Russian’s work and had once contributed a large donation to Pavlov. So our investigators went to Pavlov’s laboratory and observed the results of his experiments in conditioned reflexes. Apparently the final report of the investigators was not fully satisfactory, for, as you know, Parlor did not win the first Nobel Prize that year. He had to wait three more years to win it.’
‘Who did win the first medical prize?’ asked Ingrid Pahl. ‘It is shameful of me, and do not repeat it to Dr. Krantz, but I simply cannot remember.’
‘It was a close contest that first year,’ said Ohman. ‘A small number of judges supported Pavlov. The committee’s recommendation was that the award be divided between Niels Finsen of Denmark and Ronald Ross of Great Britain. But there was also substantial backing for-uhhh-Emil von Behring of Germany. Eventually, the debate raged around von Behring. Some considered his discovery of the serum against diphtheria an old discovery and therefore disqualified. Others felt that it should be honoured, because it was long accepted by the public, and would be familiar and noncontroversial. Uhhh-well, von Behring won, he won because his serum was popular- serums always are with our medical judges-and the three losers, Ross, Finsen, Pavlov, won their prizes later, in the next three years.’
Garrett’s attention had strayed, again, to the framed photographs on the walls. ‘Those pictures, Dr. Ohman, are they all medical winners?’
Ohman surveyed the photographs with pride. ‘My little hobby,’ he said. ‘I was a mere lad-long ago-in the thirties-when my father invited me to attend with him a Nobel ceremony. My father was a journalist and had a press invitation, and then a colleague became ill and there was an extra invitation at the last moment and my father took me. It was a memorable occasion for a young boy. I watched Sir Charles Scott Sherrington receive the diploma for medicine, and my father told me all about Sherrington-how he had been nominated regularly for thirty years, and, for one reason or another, the investigators always recommended against him-and now, in his old age, they had relented. I was moved. That night, my destiny was set. I, too, would become a physician. Sherrington’s was the first photograph I hung on this wall, so long after. It’s there, behind my desk.’
Ohman leaped to his feet, and went around his desk, squinting at his photographs. ‘Eventually, I acquired photographs of all the winners, and the autographs of at least half of them. An inspiring hobby.’ He pointed to a fuzzy photograph. ‘Uhhh-the celebrated Dr. Paul Ehrlich, In the first eight years, he was nominated seventy times by professors in thirteen different nations. His work in immunology was recognized, at last, in 1908. There is a story-the Kaiser of Germany was like a peacock over Ehrlich’s conquest of the spirochete causing syphilis, and at a public banquet told him-ordered him-as if it were the easiest thing, “Now Ehrlich, get on with it, get rid of cancer”.’
Rapidly, Ohman bounced from picture to picture, tapping some and adding vocal captions. ‘Here-uhhh-Sir Alexander Fleming. University of London. He was looking into influenza when a blue-green mould spoiled on one of his culture plates. It was the shape of a pencil. He named it penicillin. That was 1928, yet he received no Nobel Prize for it until 1945, seventeen years later, because initially, he had no practical use for the discovery. Then, Sir Howard Florey and Dr. Ernst Boris Chain, of Oxford, began to wonder if it had a use. They injected mice with fatal doses of streptococci, and half of the mice with this penicillin, and the half with penicillin lived and the others died, and they had found a use, at last, for Dr. Fleming’s accidental find. They
He had reached a larger frame bearing two portraits. ‘Uhhh, the first joint prize-this will interest you especially, Dr. Garrett. For five years the Swedish Academy resisted splitting a single prize. Finally, in 1906, they broke down and divided an award between Camillo Golgi, of Italy, and Ramon y Cajal, of Spain. Since then, the prize has been divided many times, as witness-Dr. Farelli and you.’
The blood seethed to Garrett’s cheeks, and he wanted to speak against the outrage of Farelli, but some restraint kept him from bringing up the matter before Ingrid Pahl. Instead, he said, ‘Do you think those joint prizes are fair?’
‘So many candidates are often in the same field, it is impossible to credit only one.’ Ohman had arrived at an elderly face on the wall. ‘My favourite since 1949. Dr. Antonio Egas Moniz, of Lisbon, Portugal.’
‘Who is he?’ asked Ingrid Pahl.
‘In 1936, he introduced the prefrontal lobotomy,’ said Ohman. ‘There was no cure for certain cases of severe mental distress, apprehension, depression. Drugs would not help. Psychiatric treatment would not help. Dr. Moniz found that these acute fears, verging on insanity, came from the frontal lobes of the brain, certain grey matter in the skull above the eyebrows. By incisions in the side of the head, the size of a shilling, and severing the nerve fibres of the front lobes with a long thin knife, Dr. Moniz learned that a patient’s anxiety could be dramatically reduced.’
‘It sounds horrible,’ said Ingrid Pahl.
‘It is to be preferred to suicide or insanity,’ said Ohman flatly. ‘It cuts away all apprehension and worry. It makes these patients happier. The only unfortunate aspect is that it frequently makes them into irresponsible dullards.’
‘But that’s like cutting away a man’s conscience, the soul that God gave him,’ said Ingrid Pahl.
‘In medicine, we are less concerned with a man’s soul than with his life,’ said Ohman objectively. ‘Uhhh-I am sure that Dr. Garrett will not disagree with me. The brain is the unexplored Mato Grosso of the human body. For that reason, I have always respected Dr. Moniz’s find above all others-until lately. Now, I have a new favourite.’
Ohman hurried back to his desk, opened, a drawer, and took out a photograph. He offered it to Garrett with a pen.
‘Will you sign your photograph, Dr. Garrett? It shall henceforth have the main place-above Dr. Moniz.’
Garrett accepted the picture and pen. ‘I hardly know what to say.’
‘You need say nothing. Your accomplishment speaks for you.’
Garrett signed the photograph: ‘To my favourite co-worker and friend. Dr. Erik Ohman, with best wishes, John Garrett.’ He returned the photograph and pen, and Ohman fondled the photograph with the reverence often given an early church relic.
‘Now,’ said Garrett, pointedly, ‘I’d like to talk a little shop.’
Ingrid Pahl could not miss the meaning of Garrett’s remark, and she did not. She pushed herself from her chair. ‘If it is going to be shop talk, this is no place for me. I have some friends here I want to see. When do you want me to pick you up, Dr. Garrett?’
‘Well-’
‘Not for an hour anyway,’ said Ohman. ‘Uhhh-there is much I want to show Dr. Garrett. I want to take him through my ward and discuss various problems.’
‘An hour, then,’ said Ingrid Pahl, and she waddled out of the room.
The moment that they were alone, Garrett began to adhere to his battle plan. ‘When do you perform your next transplantation?’ he asked Ohman.
‘We go into surgery at seven in the morning of the tenth. I am still making tests on the patient, and still trying to find the correct-sized young bovines or sheep, in order to acquire the best fresh hearts available. The case is an interesting one. Uhhh-I should say, in some respects, the most challenging and important one I have yet undertaken. The patient is a Count in his early seventies, a distant relative of His Royal Highness. Much public attention will be given to the result.’
Garrett’s heart leaped. This was what he had hoped for, this was the main chance.
