In June 1858, the Lancet magazine in London published this paper - "A Study of the Causes of Some Infectious Diseases and the Effect of a Chemical on Their Treatment".

It was a very long paper, and its publication took up all the space in the Lancet except for the front and back covers, making it impossible to publish any other papers in the Lancet this issue. Even so, the issue is extraordinarily thick. But after reading the paper, almost everyone agreed that the Lancet could not have been more appropriate, because rarely in the history of medicine does a paper contain more than one aspect of groundbreaking or even decisive content-it is a paper that will go down in history. Some people even bought this issue of The Lancet as a collector's item, and many years later, their vision was verified, and in 1954, the 110th anniversary of the birth of medical pioneer George Scrooge, a copy of The Lancet magazine signed by Scrooge, which had been collected by a kind person, fetched an astronomical price of US$2 million! This was back in the days when the dollar and gold were still tied together.

In this paper, Scrooge pointed out that microorganisms invisible to the naked eye are the cause of many infectious diseases. Although Levine Hook discovered microorganisms in 1683, they have been used in many cases. Hooker discovered them, but people have never associated them with the cause of disease. It was not until 1865, when the French microbiologist Pasteur was studying silkworms, that the relationship between these little things and disease was first discovered. We can't blame European scientists for being insensitive, as they failed to understand these very simple problems today after the invention of the microscope and the discovery of bacteria by Levin Hook. This is because the difference between the refractive index of bacteria and their surroundings is so small that even under the microscope, people can at best see something, but not in detail, let alone identify them. In fact, until 1884, when the Danish physician Gram invented the Gram stain, the identification of bacterial species was very difficult.

Now, Scrooge's paper brings forward these vital discoveries. In this paper, Scrooge first introduced the method of staining bacteria for observation (Gram stain method) and the pictures of a large number of bacteria that were not found in normal people by using this method in the saliva, blood, and excreta of some patients. From this, it was proved that diseases including cholera, smallpox, puerperal fever, sepsis, tetanus, etc. were caused by different bacterial infections. Any paper with one such epoch-making discovery is enough to be passed down to the world, and any person with one such discovery in his life is enough to be immortalized! This paper not only points out the causes of the problem but also proposes a series of solutions.

In this paper, Scrooge pointed out that one of the major reasons for the high mortality rate in hospitals is the poor hygiene conditions and the lack of thorough disinfection of objects that may carry pathogenic bacteria, resulting in cross-contamination. To solve this problem, he came up with several feasible disinfection methods, such as alcohol disinfection, high-temperature steaming disinfection, sunlight disinfection, etc. Also, he used pictures to contrast the effect of disinfection. With these methods, if a hospital is willing to follow them seriously, the number of deaths caused by cross-infection will be greatly reduced, not to mention other things, at least the incidence of puerperal fever, which causes a large number of maternal deaths, will drop by an alarming rate. It can be said that this paper has changed the status quo that going to the hospital is like going to the grave. Nowadays, hospitals may still have little idea how to treat patients, and they still have to use treatments that are actually useless or even bad (such as making patients eat oil, which is a real thing and the first use of oil in Europe and America. They treat humans as Autobots and Decepticons), but at least, the risk of death is greatly reduced, any paper, as long as there is a landmark discovery is enough to pass on, and any person, as long as there is one such discovery in a lifetime, is also enough to immortalize!

But this thesis also not only did these, but ShiGaoZhi in the thesis even also came up with how to treat those who have been infected by the germ of the patient's method! The ShiGaoZhi claimed that he studied how to stain the bacteria, found certain chemical substances to the growth and reproduction of bacteria have a very obvious inhibitory effect, and then thought of using these chemical substances to treat the various diseases brought about by bacterial infection. For this purpose, he designed a series of experiments.

First, he used artificial methods to infect animals such as rabbits with certain disease-causing bacteria. After these rabbits showed very obvious signs of disease, he gave them a special chemical. After thousands of comparative trials (here Scrooge bragged, but who among Scrooge's staff would expose him? Even if they did, who would believe them?) The chemical was effective and did not have particularly serious toxic side effects. (At that time, a large number of mercury and arsenic were used to combat skin diseases such as syphilis, resulting in a mortality rate close to 50%.)

After the animal experiments, he carefully carried out human experiments. And in the treatment of sepsis, pneumonia, even cholera, and other diseases, has obtained very good results. Therefore, he was convinced that the day of complete victory over various infectious diseases was not far away.

Such a paper, from the principle of prevention to treatment, made a groundbreaking contribution, and how could it not have shocked the entire European medical and scientific community? The Lancet had already verified those experiments before the paper was published, and after the article was published, scientists all over Europe After the report was published, scientists throughout Europe followed the methods in the paper and verified the authenticity of the experiments. The only thing that remains in doubt is - what is the "chemical agent" and is it that useful?

Of course, Scrooge did not forget to patent his sulfa. There are many different kinds of sulfa drugs, and in the original history, by 1949, there were at least 5,000 sulfa drugs in the world, but only a few dozen of them were the most useful and effective. In addition, he also patented all the most common processes for the production of sulfonamide and built up a high patent barrier. The patent term of this kind of international patent is 14 years, and in the United States, the protection period of the patent is even 22 years. This means that within 14 years, he is the only person in the world who can produce this drug, and within 22 years, he is the only person in the United States who can produce sulfonamide. The fact that he was able to dominate this market for such a long period was enough for him to build an empire no less than that of Vanderbilt.

Half a month later, the first shipment of sulfonamide arrived in England amidst the anticipation of the whole of Europe. It was sold out in almost the blink of an eye. Then the entire European medical community waited with eyes wide open for the results to come back from the hospitals in England. After another week, the preliminary results came in, and it was proven that sulfa was effective not only against sepsis, puerperal fever, and pneumonia but even with any bacteria-related disease.

"If there was a so-called cure-all drug in the world, sulfa would probably be it. Now whenever I find something I can't deal with, my first reaction is, to use sulfa, and it rarely lets me down." So said one doctor in an interview with The Times.

Now, there is no longer any doubt about sulfonamide in all of Europe. People were hailing the great discovery. Even the great revolutionary leader Karl Marx praised Scotch. Even the great revolutionary leader Karl Marx hailed Scrooge's discovery as a great achievement on par with Copernicus' heliocentrism, Darwin's theory of evolution, and Newton's three laws. Now, the only problem is that the production of sulfanilamide is still too low and the price is still too high to meet the market demand.

Because Scrooge claimed that sulfonamide was discovered by chance when he was trying to find a pigment to dye bacteria, the price of various pigments was influenced by his thesis, just as the price of rabbits was. For example, the price of indigo once more than doubled, and the sick, but can not get sulfa patients began to eat all kinds of dyes indiscriminately so that the excrement of some patients turned blue.

In such a frenzy, the Royal Academy of Sciences, and the French Academy of Sciences this far away from the Yankee issued an invitation, hoping that he can become their foreign academician. A series of European universities also sent invitations to Scrooge.

President Buchanan also praised Scrooge's achievements and invited him to a dinner at the presidential palace. But Scrooge declined the invitation on the pretext that he had to devote his time to scientific research, but soon afterward he appeared at a Republican Party rally-an obvious political statement. The Republicans and Lincoln himself were very grateful.

After receiving invitations from the Royal Academy of Sciences and the French Academy of Sciences, Scrooge decided to accept their invitations to become a foreign member. It was too useful for prestige. In the world at that time, the status of the academicians of these two academies was very high. When he became an academician of these two academies, it was very much like becoming a so-called great scholar in China, and the general powers would be very concerned if they wanted to move him.