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Paul Ehrlich, archives and the history of immunology

Nature Immunology volume 6, page 639 (2005)Cite this article

To the editor:

Peter Medawar once pointed out that when a scientist describes his work for publication, historical revisionism inevitably intrudes1. No mention is made of false starts, wrong interpretations or rejected data; the results are presented in a logical order, as though the initial questions were obvious and led in a straight line to the results. How then is the historian to make sense of the process and to help us to understand the cultural richness and scientific complexity of our past and how we got where we are today? Only by digging deeper into the scientist's notebooks, correspondence and other private papers. This can only be done if these materials are deposited in an accessible archive.

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References

  1. Medawar, P.B. Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought (American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1969).

  2. For more information, contact D.H. Stapleton, Executive Director, Rockefeller Archive Center (archive@rockefeller.edu).

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  1. Johns Hopkins Institute of the History of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, 21205, USA

    Arthur M. Silverstein

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  1. Arthur M. Silverstein
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Correspondence to Arthur M. Silverstein.

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Silverstein, A. Paul Ehrlich, archives and the history of immunology. Nat Immunol 6, 639 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni0705-639

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