“Research is formalised curiosity…”
Zora Hurston
Anyone who has spent time in my operating theatre will know that i like to ask trivia questions. Art, history, pens, stationary, Sturt footy and sometimes even medicine and surgery. A favourite is how did the anticoagulant, Warfarin get its name? Well it turns out Stahmann and Link isolated the active ingredient, Dicumarol in 1949. They found it in mouldy hay which was infamous for killing the local cows around Madison, Wisconsin. Their research was funded by a grant from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), and these guys knew how to play to their benefactors. Two further pieces of trivia. Firstly, Warfarin was first sold as a rat poison. and it’s subsequent marketing as a drug for humans didn’t sit particularly with doctors and patients. That changed in 1955 when US President Dwight D Esisenhower was successfully given Warfarin after a heart attack. Secondly, the sales from Warfarin in the 1950s and 60s paved the way for the establishment of WARF investment funds which can still provide over $150 million in grant money per year. #ratsak #letsmakelemonade
Pen Paint and Scalpel 