ABSTRACT
“Large doses cause damage…whereas small doses don't help.” 2 At first sight, Robert Koch's tuberculin, presented as a cure for tuberculosis late in the summer of 1890, appears to be a classic example of a risky medical innovation. The passage cited above was published in late 1891 by Paul Baumgarten, a professor of pathological anatomy in Tübingen, and summed up a year of experience with the supposed remedy. Indeed, even a superficial look at the process of research, publication, application and the way in which the medicine was discussed in public reveal the features of a risky, if not a hazardous enterprise. Tuberculin was presented as a secret remedy, with only insufficient and partly misleading information supplied about its constitutive components, its preparation and the associated animal testing. Furthermore, accusations were raised about unethical human experiments and rumors concerning the grandiose commercial plans harbored by the inventor did even more damage to its reputation. After a short period of euphoria, tuberculin was considered to be therapeutically ineffective by most physicians. 3
