In June 1858, the London-based Lancet published a paper entitled "A Study of the Causes of Some Infectious Diseases and the Therapeutic Effect of Certain Chemicals".

This is a very long paper, and its publication takes up all the space of this issue of The Lancet except for the front and back covers, so that no other papers can be published in this issue of The Lancet. Even so, this issue of the magazine is exceptionally thick. But after reading the paper, almost everyone agrees that the Lancet made such an arrangement, because there are few papers in the history of medicine that contain groundbreaking or even decisive content in multiple aspects – a paper that will definitely go down in history. Some even bought this issue of The Lancet magazine as a collector's item, and many years later, their vision was tested, and in 1954, the 110th anniversary of the birth of the medical pioneer Scrooge, a copy of the Lancet magazine signed by Scrooge was auctioned for a whopping $2 million! You know, this is the year when the dollar and gold are still tied together.

In this paper, Scrooge points out that some microorganisms, which are invisible to the naked eye, are the cause of many infectious diseases. Although microorganisms were discovered by Levine61 Hook as early as 1683, they have never been linked to the cause of disease. In the original history, it was not until 1865, when the French microbiologist Pasteur was studying silkworm disease, that he first discovered the relationship between these small things and diseases. In fact, this cannot be blamed on the insensitivity of those scientists in Europe, who have not been able to understand these very simple questions for so many years after Leeuwenhoek invented the microscope and discovered bacteria. This is because the refractive index of bacteria differs so little from their surroundings that even under a microscope, people can see something at best, not at all to see the details, let alone identify them. In fact, until 1884, when the Danish physician Gram invented the Gram staining method, it was very difficult to identify the species of bacteria.

Now, Scrooge's paper has brought these crucial discoveries ahead of the curve. In this paper, Scrooge first describes in detail how to stain bacteria for easy observation (Gram stain), and uses this method to find pictures of a large number of bacteria that are not found in normal people in the saliva, blood, and excreta of some patients. This confirmed that diseases such as cholera, smallpox, puerperal fever, sepsis, tetanus, etc., were caused by different bacterial infections. Any paper, as long as there is such an epoch-making discovery, is enough to pass on, and any person, as long as there is one such discovery in his life, it is enough to be immortal! In addition to pointing out the causes of the problem, this paper even proposes a series of solutions.

In this paper, Scrooge pointed out that an important reason for the high mortality rate in hospitals is poor hygiene, and the lack of thorough disinfection of items that may carry pathogenic bacteria leads to cross-infection. In order to solve this problem, he came up with several feasible disinfection methods, such as alcohol disinfection, high-temperature cooking disinfection, sunlight disinfection, etc., and also used pictures to compare the effect of disinfection. With these methods, if a hospital is willing to follow the methods seriously, the deaths caused by various cross-infections will be greatly reduced, not to mention the rest, at least, the incidence of puerperal fever, which causes a large number of maternal deaths, will inevitably decline by an alarming margin. It can be said that this paper has changed the status quo that going to the hospital is equivalent to going to the grave. At present, hospitals may still not have many ways to treat patients, and still have to use some treatments that have no practical effect, or even only have bad effects (such as letting patients eat oil, this is a real thing, and it is also the first use of oil in Europe and the United States). They really think of humans as Autobots and Decepticons), but at least, the danger of death is greatly reduced, and any paper with such an epoch-making discovery is enough to be passed on, and any person, as long as there is only one such discovery in his life, it is enough to be immortal!

But this paper doesn't just do that, Scrooge even came up with a way to treat patients who have been infected by germs! Scrooge claims that while researching how to dye bacteria, he discovered that certain chemicals have a very obvious effect on inhibiting the growth and reproduction of bacteria, and he thought of using these chemicals to treat various diseases caused by bacterial infections. To this end, he devised a series of practical yàn:

First of all, he used artificial methods to infect rabbits and other animals with certain pathogenic bacteria. When the rabbits showed very obvious signs of illness, he gave them the special chemical agent. After thousands of comparative tests (Scrooge is obviously bragging here, but who of Scrooge's employees will expose him?) Even if the truth is revealed, who will believe it? Scrooge was convinced that the chemical was effective and that it did not have particularly severe side effects. (At that time, a lot of mercury, arsenic and other things were used to deal with skin diseases such as syphilis, and the mortality rate was close to 50 percent. ）

After the animal realization, he cautiously carried out the human body realization. And in the treatment of sepsis, pneumonia, and even cholera and other diseases, very good results have been obtained. Therefore, he is sure that the day is not far off when all infectious diseases will be completely defeated.

Such a paper has made an epoch-making contribution from principle to prevention to treatment, how can it not shock the entire European medical community and even the scientific community. In fact, before the publication of the paper, the Lancet had already verified the authenticity of the real yàn, and after the publication of the paper, scientists throughout Europe have verified the authenticity of these real yàns according to the methods in the paper. The only thing that remains to be questioned is what that "chemical agent" is, and is it really that useful?

In the original history, by 1949, there were at least 5,000 sulfonamides in the world, but in fact, there were only a limited number of dozens of the most useful and effective ones, and Scrooge patented them all in one go. In addition, he has also applied for patents for all the most common processes for the production of sulfonamides, erecting a high patent barrier. At that time, under the leadership of the British, the major powers such as Britain, France, the United States, the German states, and Russia all recognized each other's patent rights, and the patent term of this international patent right was 14 years, while in the United States, the term of patent protection reached 22 years. This means that within 14 years, he is the only one in the world who can produce this drug, and within 22 years, he is the only one in the entire United States who can produce sulfonamides. Being able to monopolize this market for such a long period of time is enough for him to build an empire no less than Vanderbilt's back then.

Half a month later, the first batch of sulfonamides arrived in the UK in anticipation of the whole of Europe. And it was sold out almost in the blink of an eye. Then the entire European medical community opened its eyes and waited for the results to be reported back from those hospitals in the UK. After another week, the preliminary results came out, and it turned out that sulfonamides were not only effective for sepsis, puerperal fever, pneumonia, but even for any disease related to bacteria.

"If there really is a so-called cure-all drug in the world, sulfonamide is probably it. Now, whenever I find something I can't handle, my first reaction is to use sulfonamides, and it almost never lets me down. A doctor said in an interview with The Times.

Now, there is no longer any suspicion of sulfonamides in the whole of Europe. People praised this great discovery. Even the great revolutionary leader Karl 61 Marx praised Scrooge's discovery as a great achievement comparable to Copernicus's heliocentrism, Darwin's theory of evolution and Newton's three laws. Now, the only problem is that the production of sulfonamides is still too low, and the price is still too high, far from meeting the market demand.

Because Scrooge claimed that sulfonamides were discovered by accident while he was trying to find a pigment to dye the bacteria, the prices of various pigments, like the price of rabbits, were influenced by his paper. For example, the price of indigo has more than doubled, and patients who are sick but can't get sulfonamide begin to eat all kinds of dyes indiscriminately, so that some patients' excrement turns blue.

In the midst of such a frenzy, the Royal Academy of Sciences and the French Academy of Sciences sent invitations to this Yankee, who was thousands of miles away, hoping that he could become their foreign academician. A series of universities in Europe have also extended invitations to Scrooge.

U.S. President Buchanan also highly praised Scrooge's achievements and invited Scrooge to a banquet at the presidential palace. But Scrooge declined the invitation on the pretext that he would spend his time on scientific research, but he appeared at a Republican rally soon after—an apparently obvious political statement. The Republican Party, as well as Lincoln himself, was very grateful for this.

After receiving invitations from the Royal Academy of Sciences and the French Academy of Sciences, Scrooge decided to accept their invitations to serve as their foreign academicians. Because it's too much for farming prestige. In the world at that time, the status of the academicians of these two academies was very high. Becoming an academician of these two academies is a bit like becoming a so-called Confucian in China, and if the general forces want to move him, they will have great concerns - in addition to the gun in his hand, the worldwide influence is also a way to protect himself.