Review
Immunology’s first priority dispute—An account of the 17th-century Rudbeck–Bartholin feud

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Abstract

Modern immunology has been notably free of public disputes over credit for major discoveries in this discipline. But the early recognition of the lymphatic system witnessed two examples of heated priority feuds. The first in the 17th-century concerned the greater anatomical organization of the system, while the second in the 18th-century concerned its function. This essay reviews the earlier of the two disputes, in which a Swedish medical student (Ole Rudbeck) charged a respected Danish Professor (T. Bartholin) with plagiarism and antedating his observations. Thus ethical issues in immunology predate modern times. How this discipline reached this point in its history is another focus of this essay and also an excuse to review briefly the anatomy of the lymphatic system. The influence of nationalistic pride on priority disputes is also discussed.

Introduction

The impressive progress of immunology over the past 60 years has been generally free of major priority disputes of the public sort which beset other sciences starting in the 16th-century. Sociologists and historians reviewing this subject (Kuhn, Merton, Brannigan, Hellman, etc.) have included in their studies no immunological controversies worthy of analysis [1], [2], [3], [4]. But two instances of contested priority did enliven the early history of basic immunology. The first dispute, dating from the 17th-century, concerned mainly the anatomy of the lymphatic system and pitted Ole Rudbeck (a Swede) against Thomas Bartholin (a Dane). These anatomists, from neighboring countries long at war with each other, are the chief protagonists of this essay. The second dispute, from the 18th-century, centered on the function of the lymphatic system and will be treated in another paper. The Rudbeck–Bartholin controversy involved basic details of lymphatic anatomy which perhaps have been forgotten by many readers but need to be recalled for the ensuing discussion and which are summarized in the following section.

Section snippets

An overview of the lymphatic system

The lymphatic system is a widely distributed, largely invisible, intricate maze of vessels which drains extracellular fluid from all organs and tissues with the exception of the brain, the meninges, the eyeballs, tendons, and a few other structures. The system is essential in animals having a closed cardiovascular system under high pressure, because the arterial pressure (100 mm ± Hg) fills interstitial spaces with a transcapillary transudate from blood, i.e., plasma, which must be steadily

The early history of lymphatic anatomy from Hippocrates to Pecquet

The parts of the lymphatic system described earliest were lymph nodes, for they often form visible bulges beneath the skin and are palpable. Nodes were first mentioned in the 5c BC Hippocratic work entitled “On Joints,” where can be found the sentence “all men have glands, smaller or larger, in the armpit and many other parts of the body”[8]. Rufus of Ephesus, who practiced medicine in Rome during Trajan’s reign (1st–2nd-century), identified axillary, inguinal, and mesenteric nodes and the

Bartholin, the Danish Professor

Thomas Bartholin (1616–1680) is remembered as one of Denmark’s most renowned medical Professors, for like his father, Caspar Bartholin, he was a very skilled anatomist and charismatic teacher [20]. In his youth while studying medicine in Leiden (1637–40), Thomas read Aselli’s 1627 paper on chylous flow in lacteals of dogs and soon located for himself the venae lacteae during canine dissections. Over the next two decades he studied and worked in Holland, Paris, Padua, and elsewhere in Italy. He

Rudbeck, the Swedish student

In 1651, the lymphatic system attracted the attention of a Swedish medical student, unfamiliar then with either Picquet’s report just published or Bartholin’s current investigations. In Uppsala, 20-year-old Ole/Olof Rudbeck (1630–1702) had observed a “whey-like fluid” draining from the supraclavicular notch of a butchered calf [23]. He traced the source back to the thoracic duct and to its enlargement around L-2, which he named the vesicula chyli (the little bladder of chyle = cysterna chyli).

The Bartholin–Rudbeck feud

In contrast to the polite exchange of pamphlets between Bartholin and Pecquet, the subsequent paper-war between Bartholin and Rudbeck was heated and protracted. This dispute concerned three issues of priority: (1) Who first discovered that the mesenteric lacteals connect with the thoracic duct? (2) Who first determined that mesenteric chyle flows not into the liver but into the blood stream via the thoracic duct? (3) Who first recognized that the lymphatic system is widespread throughout the

Reflections on priority disputes

Besides assuaging individual egos, priority issues have sometimes been driven by nationalistic pride, as was likely true in the Bartholin–Rudbeck quarrel. Thomas Bartholin had fled Denmark in 1658–1659 during the siege of Copenhagen by the Swedish troops of King Charles X, who had declared his intent to raze the city and merge the two countries [28], [29]. One can only speculate how long the memory of this event and the continuing shadow of war influenced the Professor.

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