History: Great myths die hard
* _Héloïse D. Dufour_
(http://www.nature.com/news/history-great-myths-die-hard-1.13839#auth-1)
* & _Sean B. Carroll_
(http://www.nature.com/news/history-great-myths-die-hard-1.13839#auth-2)
02 October 2013
Finding that part of the story of Louis Pasteur's rabies vaccine is false,
Héloïse Dufour and Sean Carroll explore how science fables are born, spread
and die.
John Snow's ending of London's 1854 cholera outbreak, Joseph Lister's
development of antiseptic surgery, Alexander Fleming's invention of the drug
penicillin — the history of science and medicine is full of such stories of
great deeds by heroic figures.
But these are myths. They are grounded in some reality, yet careful
historical research has revealed them to be far from accurate_1_
(http://www.nature.com/news/history-great-myths-die-hard-1.13839#b1) , _2_
(http://www.nature.com/news/history-great-myths-die-hard-1.13839#b2) . And,
despite having
been exposed by historians, the fables live on — in books, on television, in
classrooms and online.
We have discovered that another story from the history of science — the
heroic death of Joseph Meister, the first person to be saved by Louis
Pasteur's rabies vaccine — is also a myth. Here we dissect Meister's story to
understand how such myths are born, why they die so reluctantly, and what
could
be done to puncture them.
How Meister died
In July 1885, a 9-year-old French boy named Joseph Meister was badly bitten
by a rabid dog, and faced near-certain death. Instead, young Meister
entered medical history: he was Louis Pasteur's first human patient to be
treated and saved by a rabies vaccine.
For more than half a century, accounts of the story in both English and
French have been given a dramatic ending. In 1940, 55 years after his life was
saved, Meister was serving as a gatekeeper at the Pasteur Institute in
Paris. The story goes that when German forces invaded Paris in June that year,
soldiers arrived at the institute demanding access to Pasteur's tomb and,
rather than surrender his saviour's resting place to the Nazis, the
64-year-old Meister killed himself.
Two years ago, while researching life in occupied Paris for a book on
biologist Jacques Monod, we came across a contemporaneous diary by Eugene
Wollman in the archives of the Pasteur Institute. Wollman was head of the
institute's bacteriophage lab and resident on site, and his entries directly
contradict the popularized accounts of Meister's suicide. The diary reveals
that
the date, means and motive have each been altered in the making of a myth.
In the widely repeated narrative, Meister killed himself on 14 June or 16
June, just after the German invasion of France. But on 24 June, ten days
after the Germans entered Paris, Wollman wrote: “This morning, Meister was
found dead.” It is often reported that Meister shot himself, but Wollman
stated: “He committed suicide with gas.” Some sources note that Meister
committed suicide because he could not bear the idea of the Nazis profaning
Pasteur's tomb. Wollman makes no mention of any such incident. Instead, he
indicates that Meister was “very depressed” and that “his wife and children
had
left”. Like millions of others, they had fled Paris ahead of the onrushing
German army.
Our interest piqued, we scoured published accounts of Meister's death, as
well as several written sources in the Pasteur Institute's archives and
museum. Moreover, Marie-José Demouron, Meister's granddaughter, kindly granted
us an interview. Together, these sources confirm Wollman's version and shed
further light on the motive for Meister's suicide. Meister apparently
believed that his family had perished in enemy bombing, and was overwhelmed
with guilt for having sent them away (ref. _11_
(http://www.nature.com/news/history-great-myths-die-hard-1.13839#b11) , and
M.-J. Demouron, personal
communication). In the chaos of France's collapse, it was almost impossible to
get news from loved ones, so Meister was unaware that they were safe. His
wife and daughters actually returned later on the very day that he killed
himself. As Wollman noted: “Life has an extraordinarily refined cruelty.”
The story of a man in despair over the apparent loss of his family, and
taking his life using a gas stove hours before they come home, is tragic. But
it is far from the myth of a humble servant thwarting invaders. Our sources
show that the truth was not smothered from the start. So how was the myth
born?
Myth making
A myth-making pattern seems to be emerging from the researches of many
science historians over recent decades. Stories such as Meister's are founded
on some facts, which are then moulded to create or fit the 'great man'
model.
Fleming, for example, did isolate the antibacterial product of a mould, and
did name it penicillin. But he was not responsible for the development of
the antibiotic drug used in humans 14 years later, nor was he even in
contact with the scientists responsible for that, . The catalysts to the
making
of this myth are fairly easily identified. Successful clinical trials of
penicillin were first reported in 1941, in the thick of the Second World War,
when infected wounds caused enormous casualties. Wartime newspaper editors
naturally looked for heroic stories to inspire and encourage readers.
Accounts traced the miracle drug to Fleming's serendipitous discovery many
years earlier — as The Times of 12 June 1944 put it: “Providence had been kind
to us in letting us have this most powerful agent ... when against our
will we were plunged into a bloody war.” Similarly, Meister's story was
probably distorted in part because of the war. The heroic version of his
suicide
embellishes the Pasteur legend and doubles as a tale of resistance.
As the myth is repeated it can become more disconnected from reality, and
takes on a life of its own. After the Meister narrative began to involve
German soldiers and their access to the crypt, the suicide date shifted closer
to the Nazis' arrival in Paris. Meister was then said to have shot
himself, and with his First World War revolver. In some accounts, he is even
shot
by the Nazis..
The Fleming legend too has seen attempts at further glorification, with the
claim that Fleming saved the life of former British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill — twice. As a child, Fleming purportedly rescued a young
Churchill from drowning, and later he was said to have cured Britain's leader
with
penicillin. Both claims were eventually discredited (see
_go.nature.com/hfakhl_ (http://go.nature.com/hfakhl) ). But if the truth is
available, why
are fabricated stories still perpetuated?
Historians have long recognized that the main reason that certain myths get
repeated is because they contain the ingredients of good storytelling.
Tenacious myths have heroes and villains, portray tragedy and triumph, and
present climactic actions and revelations. For example, Snow did map the
London cholera outbreak and correctly attributed it to a contaminated public
water pump. Inconveniently, he did not remove the pump handle and end the
outbreak. A committee took that action, and only after the outbreak had
abated.
Myths also inflate admirable qualities in their protagonists. Lister is
portrayed as an eccentric outsider defending the scientific truth against a
hostile environment; in fact, his use of carbolic acid was hardly
revolutionary for the time. And many members of the Pasteur Institute did put
up
resistance against the Germans, but Meister's suicide made history because it
was portrayed as a manifestation of Pasteur's eminence.
A myth is also perpetuated when authors rely on a self-referencing body of
previous work, rather than on primary or secondary sources. The more often
one sees the same version of a story, the more likely one is to accept it
as truth. This phenomenon is now amplified by the Internet. So how do we get
to the real story? And why is it important to do so?
Myth busting
Scientific myths are harmful. They distort the history and the process of
science by portraying researchers as extraordinary people making epic
advances in a fast, linear fashion. Such tales are particularly damaging to
the
public's and to students' understanding of the pace and complexity of
science. For example, the Fleming myth ignores the vast time, effort and extra
data that are required to make a medically viable drug. And by crediting
luminaries with fictional achievements, we create superheroes that no student
can hope to match.
Storytellers — journalists, authors, film-makers, scientists and educators —
need to be vigilant when it comes to their sources. Of course, primary
and well-documented secondary sources are optimal. We recognize, however,
that the search for facts surrounding events long past can be difficult and
time-consuming, and it is tempting to accept something that has been widely
repeated. Indeed, were it not for the discovery of Wollman's diary, one of
us (S.B.C.) would have been close to propagating the Meister myth. Still, if
at least we are aware of the predisposition to embellish histories, that
might discourage us from parroting them without solid evidence.
Another step is to ensure that once myths have been debunked, the truth
gets exposure. The Internet is both an asset and a liability in this
endeavour. In the Meister case, the myth has snowballed to the point at which
an
admittedly fake 'contemporary journal article' is now highly visible online
(see _go.nature.com/wqo2z6_ (http://go.nature.com/wqo2z6) ) and is sometimes
referenced as legitimate. But this power can be used to advantage.
Wikipedia, for example, is a widely accessed, often initial source of
information
that promotes the use of mostly primary and secondary literature.
Myth-busters should therefore make sure that the results of their work, and
especially
their sources, are properly referenced in this encyclopaedia. Other tools,
such as Google Books, can be used to scour vast amounts of the published
literature. Such a survey led one reader to expose the Fleming–Churchill
myth.
Myths are born because they fulfil our need for a good yarn, but a powerful
way to eliminate them is to replace the fiction with facts that are
equally satisfying. In the case of Joseph Meister, his suicide out of despair
for
his family less than 24 hours before they returned is a moving story.
However, because it no longer burnishes Pasteur's legend, it remains to be
seen
whether Meister's death will be as widely mentioned by the next wave of
scientific biographers.
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