CHANCE 



Exploiting opportunities 

 When a discovery has passed these hurdles and reached a 

 stage where it is recognised and appreciated by its originator, 

 there are still at least three more ways in which its general 

 acceptance may be delayed. 



(d) Failure to follow up the initial finding. The initial disclosure 

 may not be made the most of because it may not be followed up 

 and exploited. The most productive scientists have not been 

 satisfied with clearing up the immediate question but having 

 obtained some new knowledge, they made use of it to uncover 

 something further and often of even greater importance. 

 Steinhaeuser discovered in 1840 that cod-liver oil cured rickets 

 but this enormously important fact remained unproved and no 

 more than an opinion for the next eighty years.^* In 1903 

 Theobald Smith discovered that some motile baciUi may exist 

 in culture as the normal motile form or as a non-motile variant, 

 and he demonstrated the significance of these two forms in 

 immunological reactions. This work passed almost unnoticed 

 and was forgotten until the phenomenon was rediscovered in 

 1 91 7 by Weil and FeUx. It is now regarded as one of the 

 fundamental facts in immunological reactions.'^ Fleming 

 described crude preparations of penicillin in 1929, but after a 

 few years he dropped work on it without developing a therapeutic 

 agent. He got no encouragement or assistance from others 

 because they knew of many similar stories that had come to 

 nothing. It was some years later that Florey took the work up 

 from where Fleming left off and developed penicillin as a 

 therapeutic agent. 



(e) Lack of an application. There may be no possible applica- 

 tions of the discovery until years later. Neufeld discovered 

 a rapid method of typing pneumococci in 1902, but it was not 

 till 1 93 1 that it became of any importance when type-specific 

 serum therapy was introduced. Landsteiner discovered the human 

 blood groups in 1901, but it was not till anticoagulants were 

 found and blood transfusion was developed in the 1 914—18 war 

 that Landsteiner's discovery assumed importance and attracted 

 attention. 



(f ) Indifference and opposition. Finally the discovery has to 

 run the gauntlet of scepticism and often resistance on the part 



37 



