Word: nachmansohn
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Like many another medical victory, the development of PAM (2-pyridine al-doxime methiodide) was the unplanned result of basic research. First, Columbia's Dr. David Nachmansohn showed that the enzyme cholinesterase (one of the body's catalysts) is essential for the transmission of nerve impulses. Trying to learn more about cholinesterase, Biochemist Irwin B. Wilson discovered that nerve gases (and certain insecticides) cause death by adding to the nerve cell's cholinesterase something that damages it. The something is a phosphoryl that destroys the nerves' ability to transmit impulses to muscles...
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