Abstract
The First World War gave American pharmaceutical companies the opportunity to begin scientific research and development in a systematic way. They were now familiar with other uses of science and had developed their own laboratory techniques through the production and standardisation of biologicals. In international terms, however, they fell far behind the German chemical companies in innovation. Moreover, these German companies extensively used patents to monopolise the market for their innovations, even in the United States. The more backward American companies stood little chance of breaking into this market. However, by the beginning of the war, their own skills were sufficiently well developed for them to consider systematic research and development, and the hostilities with Germany temporarily deprived the German companies both of their markets and their patents. A few American companies were able to exploit the opportunity, and prominent among them was the Dermatological Research Laboratory in Philadelphia.
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Notes
Jonathan Liebenau, ‘The Use of American Patents by German and American Industries, 1890–1935’, unpublished typescript, University of Pennsylvania, 1978. In 1902 the number of patents taken out in the United States by Germans surpassed the number assigned to Britons. Chemical manufacturers accounted for a large number of these.
See Williams Haynes, American Chemical Industry: A History, Vol. 3 (New York: van Nostrand, 1945–52) p. 481. See also US Patent Commission, Annual Reports 1890–1935 (Washington, DC: US Patent Office).
F. A. Seely, ‘International Protection of Industrial Property’, Proceedings and Addresses, Celebration of the Beginning of the Second Century of the American Patent System at Washington City, D. C., April 8, 1891 (Washington, DC: Gedney and Roberts, 1892) pp. 199–216.
See also G. F. Folk, Patents and Industrial Progress (New York: Harper, 1942).
For the use of patents to ‘patent around’ in the electronics industry, see Leonard S. Reich, ‘Radio Electronics and the Development of Industrial Research in the Bell System’, PhD dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1977, pp. 171–4. Reich believes that companies used patents ‘both offensively and defensively: either to gain concessions from competitors, or to short-circuit new inventions which might have had disruptive possibilities. In almost every case, research became an important facet of competition for monopoly control rather than competition for shares of the market’ (p. 174).
See also David F. Nobel, America by Design: Science, Technology and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (New York: Knopf, 1977) pp. 95–110.
The patents in question were: No. 1081592 (‘Salvarsan’, granted 16 December 1913) to Paul Ehrlich and Alfred Bertheim, assignors to Farbwerke vorm, Meister Lucius u. Bruning (Hoechst); No. 1081897 (16 December 1913); and No. 1116398 (10 November 1914). See Patent Records, National Archives. These, and other key Hoechst products were signed over to Metz under a standing agreement which was explained in congressional testimony 23 March 1922, see US Congress, Senate, Hearings Before the Subcommittee of the Judiciary on the Alleged Dye Monopoly, 67th Congress, 1st Session, 1922, Testimony of Mr Herman A. Metz (Washington, DC: USGPO) pp. 741–55.
See also Paul Ehrlich and S. Hata, Die Experimentelle Chemotherapie der Spirilossen (Berlin: Springer, 1910).
Ibid.; John B. Murphy, ‘The Arsenical Treatment of Syphilis’, Journal of the American Medical Association, 55 (1910) pp. 1113–15;
Abraham L. Wolbarst, ‘Ehrlich’s Arsenobenzol: Its Technique and Indications for General Use’, New York Medical Journal, 92 (1910) pp. 972–4.
Maria Marquardt, Paul Ehrlich (London: 1949);
Claude E. Dolman, ‘Paul Ehrlich’, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 4 (New York: Scribner, 1974) pp. 295–305.
The papers of the Dermatological Research Laboratories are in the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Hereafter they will be referred to as DRL Papers. On the DRL see John A. Kolmer, ‘History of the Research Institute of Cutaneous Medicine’, in Ruben Friedman (ed.) A History of Dermatology in Philadelphia (Fort Pierce Beach, Florida: Froben, 1955) pp. 307–15; Aaron Litchin and Ira Leo Schamberg, ‘The Dawn of American-Made Synthetic Drugs’, unpublished manuscript, copy in Kremers Reference Files, University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy Library; Dermatological Research Laboratory, ‘Abstract of Minutes of the First Meeting … March 3rd, 1921’, in DRL Papers.
On the founder, Schamberg, see F. D. Weidman, ‘Memoir of Jay Frank Schamberg, M.D.’, College of Physicians of Philadelphia Transactions, 2, series 4 (1934) pp. xii–xiv;
Ira Leo Schamberg, ‘A. C. Barnes, M.D., vs. J. F. Schamberg, M.D.: A Chemotherapeutic Confrontation’, Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 41, series 4 (1974) pp. 289–94.
Obituaries of Schamberg were printed in the Archives of Dermatology and Syphilology, 29 (1934) pp. 901–4; Journal of the American Medical Association, 102 (1934) p. 1245; the Pennsylvanian Medical Journal, 37 (1934) pp. 671–3; and Dermatologische Wochenschrift, (1934) pp. 1114–15. See also Louis Peiner, ‘Jay Frank Schamberg, M.D. (1870–1934), Medical Scholar and Founder of the Independent American Pharmaceutical Industry’, Medical Times, 97, No. 12 (1969) pp. 95–1000;
A. Lichtin and Ira Leo Schamberg, ‘Jay Frank Schamberg, A Pioneer in Dermatologic Research and Chemotherapy’, AMA Archives of Dermatology, 73 (1956) p. 493;
Sigmund S. Greenbaum, and Carroll S. Wright, ‘Memoir of J. Frank Schamberg, M.D. (1870–1934)’, Urologic and Cutaneous Review, 51 (1947) pp. 251–3. On Kolmer see his vita and miscellaneous material in the Papers of John Allert Kolmer, College of Physicians of Philadelphia; ‘Memoir of John A. Kolmer’, College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Transactions, 32, series 4 (1965) p. 49. Also his own ‘History of the Research Institute’.
George Washington Corner, Two Centuries of Medicine. A History of the School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1965) pp. 215ff. The DRL, on the other hand, was very well funded. Salaries were based on the level given at the Rockefeller Institute, and Raiziss earned $15 000 a year, Kolmer and Schamberg $12000 each. US Congress, Alleged Dye Monopoly, p. 917.
E. Digby Baltzeil, An American Business Aristocracy (New York: Collier, 1962) pp. 147–8, 190.
J. F. Schamberg, J. A. Kolmer, A. I. Ringer and G. W. Raiziss, ‘Research Studies in Psoriasis’, Journal of Cutaneous Diseases, 31 (1913) pp.698, 803.
J. A. Kolmer and J. F. Schamberg, ‘The Clinical Interpretation of the Wasserman Reaction with Special Reference to Cholesterinized Antigens’, College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Transactions, October 1914; J. F. Schamberg, J. A. Kolmer and G. W. Raiziss, ‘A Study of the Germicidal Activity of Chrysarobin and Certain other Medicaments Used in Psoriasis’, Journal of Cutaneous Diseases, 32 (1914) p. 85.
J. F. Schamberg, A. I. Ringer, G. W. Raiziss, J. A. Kolmer, ‘Summary of Research Studies in Psoriasis’, Journal of the American Medical Association, 63 (1914) p. 729.
Oliver S. Ormsby and James Herbert Mitchell (eds) Skin and Venereal Diseases (Yearbook of Dermatology and Syphilology) (Chicago: Year Book Publishers, 1915).
US Congress, Alleged Dye Monopoly, pp.982, 1006; ‘D.R.L. Correspondence — and papers concerning the German Farbwerke drug patents, 1914–1922’, DRL Papers; Ormsby and Mitchell, Skin and Venereal Diseases (Yearbook of Dermatology and Syphilology) (Chicago: Yearbook Publishers, 1916) p. 222.
US Patents Nos.937929; 1081592; 1081897; 1116398. Copies in Record Group 241, National Archives. Kolmer, ‘History of the Research Institute’; J. Schumacher, ‘Das Salvarsen, ein echter Farbstoff, Dermatologische Wochenschrift, 47 (1914) pp. 1295–304.
United States Congress, Senate, Hearings Before the Committee of Patents on Salvarsan, 65th Congress, 1st session, 1917, pp. 8–9; Stokes to Martin, 13 March 1917, DRL Papers.
Jay F. Schamberg, J. A. Kolmer, and G. W. Raiziss, ‘The Administration of Arsenobenzol by Mouth’, Journal of the American Medical Association, 67 (1916) p. 1919; United States Pharmacopoeia (Philadelphia: 1920).
Roth, ‘Toxicity’; George B. Roth, ‘The Biological Standardisation of Arsephenamine and Neoarsphenamine’, US Hygienic Laboratory Bulletins, No. 135 (Washington DC: USGPO, 1923);
Jay F. Schamberg, John A. Kolmer and Geroge W. Raiziss, ‘Comparative Studies of the Toxicity of Arsphenamine and Neoarsphenamine’, American Journal of Medical Science, 140 (1920) p. 188.
See also H. Sheridan Baketel, ‘On the Use of American Made Salvarsan’, American Journal of Syphilology, 2 (1918) p. 544–9. Baketel worked for Herman Metz and promoted this product over the DRL Arsenobenzol on grounds of quality, lower toxicity and ease of use.
Editor, ‘Abrogate the Patent on Salvarsan’, Journal of the American Medical Association, 68 (1917) p. 1187.
Herman Kogan, The Long White Line. The Story of Abbott Laboratories (New York: Random House, 1963) p. 111.
Ibid., p. 113–14; ‘Correspondence with Abbott’, 16 October 1922, 18 October 1922, 19 October 1922, DRL Papers; John Thomas Mahoney, The Merchants of Life. An Account of the American Pharmaceutical Industry (New York: Harper, 1959) pp. 136–8.
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© 1987 Jonathan Liebenau
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Liebenau, J. (1987). Scientific Commercialism: Salvarsan and the Dermatological Research Laboratories. In: Medical Science and Medical Industry. Studies in Business History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08739-6_8
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