19th century Swiss physiologist Friedrich Miescher must have had a strong stomach. Because his work not only involved sniffing discarded surgical bandages to check that they were fresh, but then washing pus from them. Why was he doing this? Well, he was trying to isolated white blood cells in order to find out more about their chemical composition. And in the process he discovered a curious new substance – one that he named ‘nuclein’ but which is today known by the far more familiar name of DNA – the genetic material.
Find out more in Episode 1 of ‘DNA papers’ – a new series of podcasts hosted on the #chsmorg Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine website in which a panel of guests chat about…well, DNA and its story. And a massive thanks to Dr. Neeraja Sankaran for coming up with this great new project, putting it all together & the invitation to contribute! https://lnkd.in/e9A4Vkzj