The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7233 p134
25 January 2003

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Philosophy and detachment [more]
Mystery weapon [more]
Venerable ancestor [more]
Deadly castor oil plant [more]

Philosophy and detachment

A commentary by Henry Gee, a senior editor, in Nature for 12 December 2002 criticises the popular view of evolution as a progressive force driving inexorable improvement. This view, he comments, is reflected in our advertising. In reality, however, evolution arises mainly from natural selection, which represents an interaction between environment, mutation and superabundance. It is not amenable to memory or foresight, but works strictly in the present. The popular view that it is progressive and directed is misconceived. It was Goethe who reacted against the mood of scientific detachment and, following the view of antiquity, sought to place man at the centre of the universe and promote subjective and aesthetic ways of thought.

Gee points out that natural selection is not a universal force like gravity. Within history it has no particular direction, and certainly is not motivated by any tendency toward improvement. Modern scientists and those popularising science have failed to establish this truth. The notion of inevitable progression is popular because it boosts our own vanity and inclinations. It is a notion that has been used to justify racism and Nazism and other horrors.

There is a stern warning for us in this. Politicians should heed it, and abandon the viewpoint that social change must be for the better if it makes everything bigger.

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Mystery weapon

Considerable speculation, mixed with disquiet, has followed the operation undertaken in Russia last year to solve the hostage crisis in a Moscow theatre. A commentary published in Science for 8 November 2002 looked at some of the questions involved. The official Russian explanation, long delayed, was that a derivative of fentanyl was the compound pumped into the air-conditioning ducts of the theatre, resulting in the deaths not only of the Chechen terrorists but also 118 hostages. A late explanation offered by a Russian toxicologist was that aerolysed fentanyl was employed, and that when properly applied it should affect a person for only a few minutes, after which it would rapidly and completely decompose.

Unfortunately, it is known that fentanyl cannot act so rapidly or so violently, and German scientists found evidence that at least one other compound must have been involved. Blood and urine samples from victims showed traces of halothane, an anaesthetic that has been discarded in the West but is still used in Russia.

Residues from clothing are also being investigated in Germany. Fentanyl derivatives are solids and more likely to survive in fabrics than in bodies, where they are rapidly metabolised.

It has been suggested by a Canadian scientist that a far more potent drug, etorphine, largely used as a veterinary tranquilliser, and capable of inducing coma and respiratory failure within seconds, may have been used in Moscow. Another suggestion, curiously enough coming from a Russian scientist, is that the compound used may have been quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ), a recognised chemical warfare agent.

Much argument continues over the incident, although there is a general agreement that the Russian authorities may have had no alternative but to deploy an incapacitating agent. Yet it raises the serious question of the ethics of chemical warfare in any situation whatsoever. Regrettably, every developed nation seems to possess a range of nasty chemicals which it thinks might serve its purpose in offence or defence.

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Venerable ancestor

The celebrated iceman of the Tyrol, the Neolithic hunter called Ötzi, whose body was found in a glacier in 1991, has attracted great attention. In a commentary in The Lancet for 16 November 2002, David Sharp allows himself to wonder whether we might be approaching the limit of what examination of Ötzi can tell us about him and his environment 5,000 years ago.

It is now reported that researchers from the Czech Republic are undertaking a walk in the mountains in question. Three walkers intend to wear replicas of the iceman's shoes — composed of bearskin soles, deerskin insteps, chamois, cow and bark uppers and grass stuffing — to recapture the situation when the man met his end. It has not been firmly established whether he died of cold exposure or was killed with a flint tipped arrow, either deliberately or by accident.

Ötzi may have carried certain parasites, and his diet may have been vegetarian or omnivorous. DNA analysis, recently reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, of material derived from the alimentary canal, has shown that the iceman ate meat, obtained from red deer and ibex, together with cereal and other vegetable material.

When all the evidence is assembled, it might be thought that it is high time the venerable ancestor from the Tyrol was left in peace. But it seems evident that his pursuers are so far in no mood to give up the persecution of someone who is in no position to answer back.

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Deadly castor oil plant

The recent panic reaction to the discovery of ricin in London, and the consequent developments, stimulated me to search my library for details of this nasty substance and its processing. In view of all the arguments that have been made for suppressing publication of research that might guide evil-minded persons to ways of making and using chemical weapons of mass destruction, it was disconcerting to discover that readily available publications already give details concerning ways of preparing ricin, so that any attempt to keep the process secret is doomed to failure. One standard textbook, published in New York, told me all I needed to know, specifying chemical reagents that are commonly on the market. Needless to say, I shall keep the data to myself.

Ricinus communis, the castor oil plant (also known as Palma Christi in the New World) is a monoecious species native to India but now distributed worldwide, so that access to it is beyond anyone's control. In the tropics it forms a tree some 10m high, while in the Azores and the Mediterranean it barely reaches half this size. In the cooler north it is merely a shrubby herb, and many varieties are grown as garden ornamentaIs. The seeds ripen in the south of England.

Herodotus, who called the castor oil plant kiki, recorded that the Egyptians used it as a source of oil for lamps and also in ointments. Dioscorides described the methods of extracting the oil, saying that it should not be used as food. Pliny wrote that castor oil was a drastic purgative. The seeds contain 50 per cent of fixed oil in the form of fatty acid esters, which can be used to make soap.

It is interesting to note that in 1874 a pharmacy student in London made an emulsion with the plant which included shelled seeds. He ill-advisedly drank the potion and was sick and unable to work for a fortnight afterwards. Ricinus is a plant with which no wise person will take liberties.

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