THUDICHUM, JOHANN LUDWIG WILHELM

b. Büdingen, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, 27 August 1829;

d. London, United Kingdom, 7 September 1901), chemistry, neurochemistry, otolaryngology, public health, oenology.

Over a period of sixteen years, Thudichum labored at the chemical study of the human and animal brain, in the time he could spare from his medical practice. He is now regarded as the most significant nineteenth-century contributor to our knowledge of the chemistry of the brain. In addition, he made pioneer contributions to chemical pathology, surgery, war medicine, and public health, demonstrating a most unusual versatility.

The Thudichum family originated in Württemberg, but moved to Hesse in 1778. Ludwig, the oldest of six children, received a classical education under the tutelage of his father, Georg, a Lutheran pastor and Greek scholar of wide interests. In 1847 Ludwig was accepted for studies in medicine at the University of Giessen, but took part of his medical studies in Heidelberg. Among his teachers was the brilliant chemist Justus Liebig, and in Heidelberg he encountered Theodor Bischoff, Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, and Jacob Henle.

After a fruitful postgraduate year in Liebig’s laboratory, he opened a medical practice in Giessen (1852). On learning of a new post in pathology at the university he applied for it, but was rejected; his brief participation in the 1848 Revolution probably spoke against him. It is also possible that his service as a volunteer assistant surgeon in the army of Schleswig-Holstein in 1850 and 1851 made him suspect in the eyes of the Prussian authorities. His disenchantment with his prospects in Germany prompted him to emigrate to England in 1853. He settled in London, where his betrothed, Charlotte Dupré, a distant cousin, was now living. He married her in 1854. The couple had eight children, one of whom died at an early age.

Thudichum rapidly established himself in London, gaining membership in the Royal College of Surgeons in 1855; he also secured a teaching post (“natural philosophy”) at a now-defunct medical school, a hospital appointment, and membership in the Royal College of Physicians in 1860. In 1859 he became a British citizen. During this period he published a well received Treatise on the Pathology of Urine. A few years later he published a book on gallstones.

His accomplishments in medical practice, his published works, his participation in the defense at the trial of an unjustly accused doctor, and especially his interest in chemical pathology brought him to the attention of John Simon, then medical officer of the Privy Council, who appointed him as a consultant. Thudichum’s initial assignment was to survey the meat markets of London, with special attention to parasitic diseases affecting humans. He spent eight months in this work, finally delivering an extensive document on parasitology, published in a government “Blue Book.”

His next task was to study cholera and typhus, epidemic diseases that periodically recurred in the country, with special concern for chemical changes in the brain that might explain how that organ was affected. He recognized that he first needed information about the normal brain. He conducted his research sometimes at St. Thomas’s Hospital, where Simon had recommended him for an appointment, and sometimes in his private laboratory. He reported his work in chemical journals, and as supplements to Simon’s annual reports to the Privy Council. His first document on the chemistry of the brain, including a history of previous studies of the subject, appeared in 1874. His research on phospholipids was particularly noteworthy. Thudichum was a prolific writer and published on many other subjects as well: otolaryngology, public health, the coca of Peru, oenology (study of wine), cookery, and diverse medical problems.

Thudichum was involved in some scientific controversies that pitted him against powerful adversaries. The most significant dispute concerned the nature of protagon, an extract that the German pharmacologist Oscar Liebreich had obtained from brain, and which he considered to be a unitary, high-molecular-weight substance. Thudichum showed that it was actually a mixture of lipids by characterizing its components. Although his stance was principled and generally correct in these various disputes, Thudichum’s career was affected adversely by the criticisms, for after Simon’s retirement he was pressured to terminate his government-sponsored work. He finally published his treatise on the chemistry of the brain, based upon his own studies, in 1884; it was quickly translated into Russian, the first of many translations. It was reprinted twice in the twentieth century. Thudichum brought the work up to date shortly before his death in 1901.

Having completed his work on brain, he now concentrated on his medical specialty. In otorhinolaryngology his name is preserved in the “Thudichum nasal speculum,” an instrument that he invented.

During the Franco-Prussian War Thudichum raised money to establish, with Simon’s help, a military hospital in 1870 at Bingen, Germany, where care was provided for the injured and ill of both sides of the conflict. The epidemiological success of this venture demonstrated the value of the principles of public health long advocated by Simon.

Thudichum was aided in his research by a successive number of assistants, the best known of these being James Alfred Wanklyn, Charles Thomas Kingzett, and Henry Wilson Hake, all of whom eventually made their mark in British scientific life. Lacking an academic post, Thudichum was not able to maintain a long-lasting cadre of research personnel that could develop into a “school.” As a result, his work did not get the attention it deserved, and was neglected or forgotten.

Otto Rosenheim, a lecturer on chemical physiology at King’s College, London, began to investigate the history of protagon in 1907, and was especially impressed with the work of Thudichum on the subject. He became interested in discovering who that writer was, eventually achieving posthumous recognition for him. A 1932 paper by the medical historian Karl Sudhoff about Thudichum also helped in the rehabilitation of this “Hessian savant,” with a reassessment of his important researches. Both Rosenheim and Sudhoff regarded Thudichum as the first British biochemist. In the late 1920s Irvine H. Page, another trailblazing investigator of brain chemistry, also drew attention to Thudichum’s pioneer work. Further, the American biochemist David Drabkin, while working on the urinary pigment urobilin, became interested in Thudichum, who had much earlier conducted prize-winning research on that subject, and Drabkin became a prime authority on the man and his work.

Thudichum’s interest in the brain has led to his being eulogized as “chemist of the brain” but it is important to recognize his wide interests that fall under the broader rubric of public health: his parasite studies, writings on health in towns and countryside, his promulgation of the Turkish bath as a health measure, his lecturing on the germ theory of disease, and his interest in measures to improve the nutrition of the people.

Fifty years after his graduation Thudichum was honored by the University of Giessen with ceremonial renewal of his diploma. In it he was described as “a most celebrated exponent of the art of Medicine and Chemistry.” A fortnight later he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was cremated, his papers were burned (by his request), and his library distributed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WORKS BY THUDICHUM

A Treatise on the Pathology of Urine. London: John Churchill, 1858.

With August Dupré. A Treatise on the Origin, Nature and Varieties of Wine. London: Macmillan, 1872.

A Treatise on the Chemical Constitution of the Brain. London: Baillière, Tindall & Cox, 1884. Reprinted with a historical introduction by D. L. Drabkin. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1962. Also reprinted in Birmingham Classics of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Birmingham, Alabama, 1990.

Grundzüge der anatomischen und klinischen Chemie. Berlin: A. Hirschwald, 1886.

The Spirit of Cookery: A Popular Treatise on the History, Science, Practice and Ethical and Medical Import of the Culinary Art, with a Dictionary of Culinary Terms. London: F. Warne, 1895.

The Progress of Medical Chemistry, Comprising Its Application to Physiology, Pathology, and the Practice of Medicine. London: Baillière, Tindall & Cox, 1896.

Die chemische Konstitution des Gehirns des Menschen und der Tiere. Tübingen, Germany: F. Pietzcker, 1901.

OTHER SOURCES

Breathnach, Caoimhghin S. “Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Thudichum 1829–1901: Bane of the Protagonisers.” History of Psychiatry 12 (2001): 37–62.

Chatagnon, C., and P.-A. Chatagnon. “L’étude chimique des constituents du tissu cerebral au cours du XIXe siècle. Un pionnier en Grande-Bretagne J. L. W. Thudichum (1828–1901)[sic].” Annales médico-psychologiques 116 (1958): 267–282.

Drabkin, David L. Thudichum: Chemist of the Brain. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958. Includes annotated bibliography of J. L. W. Thudichum’s papers and books.

MacLean, Hugh, and Ida Smedley MacLean. Lecithin and Allied Substances: The Lipins. 2nd ed. London: Longmans, Green, 1927. For the protagon controversy.

Schulte, Bento. “Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Thudichum (1829–1901): Protagonist and ‘Anti-protagonist’ of Brain Chemistry.” In De novis inventis: Essays in the History of Medicine in Honour of Daniel de Moulin, edited by A. H. M. Kerkhoff, Antoine M. Luyendijk-Elshout, and M. J. D. Poulissen . Amsterdam: APA-Holland University Press, 1984.

Sourkes, Theodore L. “How Thudichum Came to Study the Brain.” Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 2 (1993): 107–119. This paper contains a detailed list of Thudichum’s appendices to the Annual Reports of the Medical Officer to the Privy Council (1858–1870; 1874–1877) and to the Local Government Board (1874–1876).

———. “The Protagon Phoenix.” Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 4 (1995): 37–62.

———. The Life and Work of J. L. W. Thudichum, 1829–1901. Montreal: Osler Library, McGill University, 2003. Appendix 4 contains a list of currently known surviving Thudichum correspondence.

Sudhoff, K. “Ludwig Thudichum (1829–1901). Rettung eines hessischen Gelehrten aus Liebigs Schule.” Nachrichten der Giessener Hochschulgesellschaft 9 (1932): 33–45.

Theodore L. Sourkes