Crews' book has several footnotes to meeting abstracts and an unpublished white paper from that period by me (I also published an obscure book chapter on it.)
In this blog I provide a summary of my experience, what I found, and a cloud link to the white paper.
For an overview, click on figure:
Sigmund Freud wanted to be famous from the beginning of his medical training.
One route to success around 1880 was brain anatomy, and fame was guaranteed to anyone who invented a major new method. Freud claimed in 1883/1884 to have invented a major new reliable method for brain anatomy - but it proved unreliable and was forgotten. Of interest, at the very same time he was publishing the method as highly reliable, he was complaining to his finance Martha that it was very difficult and unreliable. The gap between his published claims and the reality would have leaked out by the time he was coming before a promotion committee. With his science career closed off, he switched to clinical care and clinical research.
I know the story because I worked on a closely related microscopic method around 1990 and spent a couple years assembling a large archive of obscure German anatomy papers on the topic. The tale merits a couple pages in a new 2017 biography of Freud.
_____
In 1990, I worked on a gold chloride brain tissue stain similar to one Freud worked on.
In 1989/1990, I did a postdoc with Prof. Ann Graybiel at MIT where we worked on heterogeneous zones in the basal ganglia, called striosomes. I made some innovations on a gold chloride myelin stain which had been developed variously by Freud, Fleisch, and Gerlach in the 1870s and 1880s. triggered by a new paper on a gold chloride myelin stain that had just appeared in 1990.
Freud? Freud's first goal, as is well-known, was to be a famous laboratory scientist, and only barriers to promotion led him to a subsequent clinical career. His laboratory work focused development of invertebrate nervous systems, and included an independent publication on the value of his improved gold chloride fiber stain.
Working in Prof. Graybiel's laboratory, using the gold chloride stain, I showed that the primate striatum had clear, myelin-based striosomes using this technique, although the figures were essentially occult with conventional myelin stains like luxol fast blue. I found that the stain was made more reliable by addition of trace hydrogen peroxide. In this sense, I felt my method with hydrogen peroxide and gold was an improvement on a gold chloride method published by Lawrence Schmued in 1990; Schmued noted the idea of gold chloride fiber staining (though uncommon) had an older history (see his 1990 paper here) but did not mention the particular citation trail that led to Freud and Gerlach. (Schmued also holds a patent on this technique).
In 1992-1993, I collected lots of obscure 1880s German medical literature on the topic. My work appeared in some abstracts and finally in a 1994 book chapter from a basal ganglia symposium. The book chapter notes the history of gold chloride fiber stains dates to 1872, and was essentially revived (briefly) by Freud in 1883. (The published 7 page 2004 book chapter by Quinn & Graybiel is in the cloud here.)
What's Not in My 1994 Book Chapter
While in my neuropathology fellowship at UCLA in 92-93, I spent a lot of times in the library archives and had quite a trove of 1870s and 1880s articles, mostly in German, which I may have lost over the decades in one or another household move.
The main finding of interest was that in Freud's letters to his wife from 1883/1884, he talks about how difficult and tortuous the gold stain was, but in his publication at the same time, he describes the stain as highly reliable and always working.
Freud's lab career came to a very rapid end. This was a pivotal event in his life, and created Freud the Clinical Psychiatrist as opposed to Freud the Neuroanatomy Researcher. He could have been turned down for many reasons - anti-Semiticism, or favoritism, or maybe his research to date was just unimpressive. However, a feasible reason for his failure at promotion might have been that his stain, published and touted by himself as highly reliable, proved to be highly unreliable, and this would mark him as a braggart scientist who overhyped his benchwork and was not worthy of promotion. It's speculation, but the puzzle pieces could be arranged that way.*
Now in August 2017, I've dug up my 1994 Word manuscript and offering it to the Cloud, for what it's worth.
After seeing the new Crews book and reviews, I recalled that over 25 years I appear to have lost my treasured box of 1990-era photostats of 1880-era original journal publications. And my heart skipped a beat today when I was uncertain if I still had even one an electronic copy of my rough, 1994 manuscript, which I had shared with Crews some years ago. I found one on my wife's computer, dated 2004, which would be very minor revisions of my 1994 manuscript.
The word document about Freud's possible scientific fraud is an awkward document. Half of it tells the story of the 1880s use of gold chloride myelin stains, including some speculation on Freud's misbehavior, and then half talks about the use to show striosomes in primate basal ganglia. That said, here it is, as a Word document, in the cloud.
The full Freud-Martha engagement letters (he wrote a multi page letter nearly daily) for 1882, 1883, 1884 are now published in 3 dense German volumes, "Die Brautbriefe, Vols 1,2,3," 1500 pp, Gerhard Fichtner et al., 2011,2013,2015, Fischer Verlag. I haven't fully studied yet.[**]
______
TO LEARN MORE...
___
Also archived in the cloud is a 2004 web publication on Freud's neuropathology contributions, by David Galbis-Reig, here.
____
* The short blunt form would be that Freud hyped and misled in his publications about his benchwork, was found out, and it got him sacked.
[**] E.g. in Brautbriefe vol 3, page 108, 29 Jan 1884, we read, "Ende dieser Woche hoffe ich die Abfassung der methodischen Mitteilungen in zwei Sprachen beendigt zu haben." (By the end of this week I hope to have finished the composition [Abfasshung] of the methodologic communication [article] in two languages.)
In this blog I provide a summary of my experience, what I found, and a cloud link to the white paper.
For an overview, click on figure:
 |
| click to enlarge |
Summary
Sigmund Freud wanted to be famous from the beginning of his medical training.
One route to success around 1880 was brain anatomy, and fame was guaranteed to anyone who invented a major new method. Freud claimed in 1883/1884 to have invented a major new reliable method for brain anatomy - but it proved unreliable and was forgotten. Of interest, at the very same time he was publishing the method as highly reliable, he was complaining to his finance Martha that it was very difficult and unreliable. The gap between his published claims and the reality would have leaked out by the time he was coming before a promotion committee. With his science career closed off, he switched to clinical care and clinical research.
I know the story because I worked on a closely related microscopic method around 1990 and spent a couple years assembling a large archive of obscure German anatomy papers on the topic. The tale merits a couple pages in a new 2017 biography of Freud.
_____
In 1990, I worked on a gold chloride brain tissue stain similar to one Freud worked on.
In 1989/1990, I did a postdoc with Prof. Ann Graybiel at MIT where we worked on heterogeneous zones in the basal ganglia, called striosomes. I made some innovations on a gold chloride myelin stain which had been developed variously by Freud, Fleisch, and Gerlach in the 1870s and 1880s. triggered by a new paper on a gold chloride myelin stain that had just appeared in 1990.
Freud? Freud's first goal, as is well-known, was to be a famous laboratory scientist, and only barriers to promotion led him to a subsequent clinical career. His laboratory work focused development of invertebrate nervous systems, and included an independent publication on the value of his improved gold chloride fiber stain.
Working in Prof. Graybiel's laboratory, using the gold chloride stain, I showed that the primate striatum had clear, myelin-based striosomes using this technique, although the figures were essentially occult with conventional myelin stains like luxol fast blue. I found that the stain was made more reliable by addition of trace hydrogen peroxide. In this sense, I felt my method with hydrogen peroxide and gold was an improvement on a gold chloride method published by Lawrence Schmued in 1990; Schmued noted the idea of gold chloride fiber staining (though uncommon) had an older history (see his 1990 paper here) but did not mention the particular citation trail that led to Freud and Gerlach. (Schmued also holds a patent on this technique).
In 1992-1993, I collected lots of obscure 1880s German medical literature on the topic. My work appeared in some abstracts and finally in a 1994 book chapter from a basal ganglia symposium. The book chapter notes the history of gold chloride fiber stains dates to 1872, and was essentially revived (briefly) by Freud in 1883. (The published 7 page 2004 book chapter by Quinn & Graybiel is in the cloud here.)
What's Not in My 1994 Book Chapter
While in my neuropathology fellowship at UCLA in 92-93, I spent a lot of times in the library archives and had quite a trove of 1870s and 1880s articles, mostly in German, which I may have lost over the decades in one or another household move.
The main finding of interest was that in Freud's letters to his wife from 1883/1884, he talks about how difficult and tortuous the gold stain was, but in his publication at the same time, he describes the stain as highly reliable and always working.
- Was he gilding the lily (so to speak) in his publications, hoping for promotion to go through, before anyone found out his stain was unreliable, which is how he described the stain to his wife?
- Or do the letters to his wife describe his tortuous research path, but however, he truly believed he had found a reliable method as recorded his published manuscript?
- The short timetable between the letters and the journal submission make this less likely.
- Did the unreliability of his gold myelin stain contribute to his rejection for tenure, one of the most pivotal events in his career path? Could this have cast him as a "self promotion and hype guy" rather than as "reliable researcher?"
Freud's lab career came to a very rapid end. This was a pivotal event in his life, and created Freud the Clinical Psychiatrist as opposed to Freud the Neuroanatomy Researcher. He could have been turned down for many reasons - anti-Semiticism, or favoritism, or maybe his research to date was just unimpressive. However, a feasible reason for his failure at promotion might have been that his stain, published and touted by himself as highly reliable, proved to be highly unreliable, and this would mark him as a braggart scientist who overhyped his benchwork and was not worthy of promotion. It's speculation, but the puzzle pieces could be arranged that way.*
Now in August 2017, I've dug up my 1994 Word manuscript and offering it to the Cloud, for what it's worth.
After seeing the new Crews book and reviews, I recalled that over 25 years I appear to have lost my treasured box of 1990-era photostats of 1880-era original journal publications. And my heart skipped a beat today when I was uncertain if I still had even one an electronic copy of my rough, 1994 manuscript, which I had shared with Crews some years ago. I found one on my wife's computer, dated 2004, which would be very minor revisions of my 1994 manuscript.
The word document about Freud's possible scientific fraud is an awkward document. Half of it tells the story of the 1880s use of gold chloride myelin stains, including some speculation on Freud's misbehavior, and then half talks about the use to show striosomes in primate basal ganglia. That said, here it is, as a Word document, in the cloud.
The full Freud-Martha engagement letters (he wrote a multi page letter nearly daily) for 1882, 1883, 1884 are now published in 3 dense German volumes, "Die Brautbriefe, Vols 1,2,3," 1500 pp, Gerhard Fichtner et al., 2011,2013,2015, Fischer Verlag. I haven't fully studied yet.[**]
______
TO LEARN MORE...
- Book Chapter from 1994. The short and formal publication without any speculation on Freud's intentions is: Quinn B & Graybiel AM (1994) Myeloarchitectonics of the primate caudate-putamen. In: Basal Ganglia Vol. IV, Advances in Behavioral Biology Book Series. At Springer, here.
- Pages in the cloud, here.
- Couple Pages from Crews 2017. I've uploaded a couple pages of paragraphs of the story as newly published in Crews 2017, which I think is within fair use of the 500 page book...
- Crews book pages on the topic: here.
- Nerdy Deep Dive Version. The lengthy and informal Word manuscript version, full of obscure citations and including speculation on Freud's misbehavior, follows:
- Quinn, Myelin Stains and Myeloarchitectonics: A neuropathologic historical vignette from Freud's laboratory, and modern applications in basal ganglia research.
- HERE.
- Zip File of Very Old Papers.
- Two of Freud's gold chloride papers, three by Upson in the same era, a review in 1937 by Jellife, and some BQ notes, in a zip file here.
- More Freud-Bernays letters have been released in German 2011-2015 than I had access to in 1992-4. (Brautbriefe, Vol 1-3, e.g. here, vol. 4-5 planned.) Vol. 2 covers to December 1883 and Vol. 3 covers 1884, the periods of the gold chloride adventures. Images may also be available at Library of Congress. I have the books on hand in my home.
___
Also archived in the cloud is a 2004 web publication on Freud's neuropathology contributions, by David Galbis-Reig, here.
____
* The short blunt form would be that Freud hyped and misled in his publications about his benchwork, was found out, and it got him sacked.
[**] E.g. in Brautbriefe vol 3, page 108, 29 Jan 1884, we read, "Ende dieser Woche hoffe ich die Abfassung der methodischen Mitteilungen in zwei Sprachen beendigt zu haben." (By the end of this week I hope to have finished the composition [Abfasshung] of the methodologic communication [article] in two languages.)
