Many difficult principles in science and humanities can be taught best by a story (of its discovery), by an anecdote or some historical facts about them.

1. Teaching by Stories, Anecdotes
and Historical Facts
Prof. (Dr,) Bhaswat S. Chakraborty
Emeritus Professor, Institute of Pharmacy,
Nirma University
Presented at the CEP for Pharmacy Teachers, Institute of Pharmacy,
Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India, September 25, 2018

3. Teaching
• The Encyclopaedia Britannica says,
• “Teaching, the profession of those who give instruction,
especially in an elementary or a secondary school or in a
university.”
• In the act of teaching there are two parties (the teacher and the taught) who work
together in some program (the subject matter) designed to modify the learners’
experience and understanding in some way
• Teaching shares most of the criteria of a profession:
1. a process of formal training,
2. a body of specialized knowledge,
3. a procedure for certifying, or validating, membership in the profession, and
4. a set of standards of performance—intellectual, practical, and ethical

4. Pedagogy
• Pedagogy deals with teaching principles, methods, and styles
• There are no fixed rules of pedagogy and thank goodness for that
• There are following pedagogic objective is that I think all teachers should like
to achieve:
• Transfer of knowledge
• Motivate the learner to learn honestly and comprehensibly
• Competence of the teacher To teach the subject matter and the most state the
associated practicals
• Inspire to analyse the situation, to reflect on the insight and apply to innovation and
other usefulness
• Relentless commitment to develop good students and excellent future citizens &
professionals

5. Classroom Teaching with Textbooks, Publications &
Audiovisual Aids
• Historically the first method of teaching was of course verbal instructions and
gestures.
• Then came the use of chalk words for the teachers and slates for the students
• Some form of written documents either on the leaves or as stone carvings or
on some ancient forms of paper seems to be 2500 to 4000 years old
• We know this from Vedic documentations and documentation is from Socrates Plato and
Aristotle.
• James Pillans, a high school teacher in Edinburgh Scotland is credited with
the first use of blackboard in 1801 when young large piece of slate on the
classroom wall.

6. Audiovisual Aids
• By 1929 sound motion films were used
in classrooms for teaching purposes
• Flipcharts, slides (usng projectors) came
thereafter and internet resources,
powerpoint slides are the most recent
influences in AV area
• Proved to be very beneficial in almost
all fields of knowledge
• They appeal to the senses especially
seeing & hearing thereby enhancing
curiosity and understanding
Pannneerselvam & Santhan S. (1998). Introduction to Educational Technology. 4th Revised Edition. New Delhi (India). Sterling Publishers.

7. Let Us Learn about some Discoveries
(including drug discoveries) through Stories,
Anecdotes & Facts

8. Newton & Falling Apple
• "After dinner, the weather being warm, we went
into the garden and drank tea, under the shade
of some apple trees. [Newton] told me, he was
just in the same situation, as when formerly, the
notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was
occasion'd by the fall of an apple, as he sat in
contemplative mood.
• 'Why should that apple always descend
perpendicularly to the ground,' thought he to
himself. 'Why should it not go sideways, or
upwards? But constantly to the earth's centre?
Assuredly, the reason is, that the earth draws it.
There must be a drawing power in matter.'"
William Stukeley, a friend of Newton published in 1752
Gravity works along a vertical vector

9. Archimedes has gone down in history as the Scientist
who ran naked through the streets of Syracuse
shouting "Eureka!" — or "I have it!" in Greek.
• The King of the land wanted to wear a Golden
Crown. He gave some gold to a goldsmith to make a
suitable crown. The goldsmith brought the finished
crown to the King. The crown was weighed. The
weight of the crown was equal to the gold given to
the goldsmith by the King. The King looked at the
color of the crown. He had a suspicion. The
goldsmith could have stolen some gold from the
gold given to him. The King wanted to find out the
truth. He asked his court scientist Archimedes to
find out. The King said, “Find out how much gold
had been stolen?"
• How to find out the truth? Archimedes thought
about the problem day and night. One day he was
about to have his bath, but he was busy thinking. He
did not notice the bathtub. The water in the bathtub
was already full to the brim. He slid into the
bathtub. Immediately a large quantity of water
flowed over the brim of the bath tub. He noticed
this suddenly. His brain wave worked suddenly. He
jumped out of the bathtub, shouting, “Eureka!
Eureka!" Eureka in Greek means “I have found it."
The more the density the less the volume

10. Small-Pox Vaccine
• In the late 18th century, Edward Jenner made
remarkable contributions to the development of the
smallpox vaccine. Smallpox was one of the most feared
diseases due to its high mortality rate and the extensive
facial scarring inflicted on those who survived.
• Prior to Jenner, the only preventive measure was
variolation (inoculation) using pustule material from
someone who already had the disease. Variolation led to
a less severe case but could still result in death.
• However, in his small-town practice in rural England,
Jenner noticed that milkmaids who caught the less
serious cowpox would not catch smallpox. This idea of
infection with a less harmful virus led to the
development of the vaccination. (Vacca is Latin for
“cow.”)
• The importance of developing the smallpox vaccine
cannot be understated. In 1980, the World Health
Organization declared this once-feared disease officially
eradicated, making it the first and only disease to achieve
this status.

11. Chlorambucil
• Chlorambucil is an antileukemia drug first approved by the
FDA in 1957. Leukemia is cancer of the blood cells and is
one of the leading cancers in individuals under age 15.
The origins of this drug go all the way back to the use of
mustard gas on World War I battlefields.
• Many years after the war and under the threat of World
War II, researchers at Yale were looking into treatments
for mustard gas poisoning when they noticed that soldiers
exposed to the gas had unusually low white blood cell
counts.
• This led to the discovery that nitrogen mustard–based
compounds could be used in the treatment of leukemia to
kill mutated and cancerous white blood cells and prevent
further tumor division. More research led to the
development of chlorambucil, which is still used to treat
these types of cancers today.

12. Lithium
• The treatment of bipolar disorder (formerly known as
manic depression) has varied greatly throughout
history. Sadly, until the late 20th century, patients were
often confined to asylums. However, in 1948,
Australian psychiatrist Dr. John Cade devised a
revolutionary treatment using lithium salts.
• This discovery came from his testing of the incorrect
historical belief that a link existed between urea and
mania. Cade took a somewhat unorthodox approach
by collecting urine from patients and storing it in his
own kitchen fridge to inject into live guinea pigs.
• Over time, he began to inject uric acid directly into the
guinea pigs, using lithium urate as it was so highly
soluble. Lithium salt caused the animals to become
relaxed, so Cade later tried it on himself with similar
results. His work paved the way for the current leading

13. Penicillin
• Although many people have heard of the chance
discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928, very
few know the story of Ernst Chain and Howard Florey, the
men who developed penicillin into a drug. All three men
shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1945 for their work
on penicillin.
• While studying antibacterial substances at Oxford
University in the 1930s, Chain, Florey, and their team
began researching Fleming’s work on penicillin and
devised a plan to mass-produce the penicillin mold to
treat infections.
• Their culturing methods included the use of old dairy
equipment and even Marmite as a growth medium. One
early favored method involved the use of cantaloupes,
which was successful enough to begin clinical trials.
• The two men’s efforts did not go unnoticed by the US
armed forces. During World War II, the military realized
penicillin’s potential to treat battle wounds for infections
and began mass-production of the drug for the D-day
landings. Penicillin went on to save countless lives during
the war and beyond.

14. Lysergic acid
diethylamide (LSD)
• Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a Schedule I psychoactive
substance that can cause intense hallucinogenic experiences
for users. Ordinarily, it would not be considered a
pharmaceutical drug. However, it has recently shown
promise in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.
• LSD was first synthesized in 1938 by Swiss chemist Albert
Hofmann in the search for a blood circulation stimulant.
However, this proved fruitless, so it was set aside for five
years.
• Upon resynthesizing the drug in 1943, Hofmann accidentally
ingested a small amount from his fingertips, leading to an
experience he described as “an uninterrupted stream of
fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense,
kaleidoscopic play of colors.”
• Three days later on April 19, Hofmann purposely ingested a
larger dose of the drug and experienced what is known by
LSD fans as Bicycle Day (named after the mode of transport
that Hofmann used to return home during his “trip”). With
this, LSD was born and became popular as a symbol of the
“flower power” movement during the 1960s. The drug is still
used today.

15. Disulfirum
• More commonly marketed as Antabuse, disulfiram is used
to reduce alcohol addiction. The drug reacts with the
alcohol consumed to cause nausea and an increased heart
rate. This is meant to be a deterrent for drinking.
• Two Danish medical researchers, Jeans Hald and Erik
Jacobsen, originally tested this drug as an antiparasitic.
Each decided to try small samples to establish the side
effects. Later, at an after-work cocktail party, this turned
out to be a big mistake.
• After the men consumed small amounts of alcohol, both
rapidly became violently ill. This led them to conclude that
the two events were connected and that their antiparasitic
might have another use.
• Interestingly, upon further research into this drug, it was
noticed that workers in the rubber industry had already
known about this connection for some time. The same type
of reaction to alcohol was observed in those who used
similar chemicals in the production of rubber, but the two
were not yet linked.

16. Cisplatin
• Cisplatin is used in the treatment of testicular cancers.
In fact, it is estimated to cure up to 90 percent of cases
of this type of cancer.
• The discovery of the drug’s anticancer properties by US
chemist Barnett Rosenberg in the 1960s occurred
mainly by chance. Rosenberg was testing a hypothesis
based on the effect of strong electrical fields on E. coli
when he noticed that it was able to prevent division of
the bacteria’s cells.
• Rosenberg discovered that the use of platinum
electrodes caused this effect, not the electrical current.
He had actually synthesized a chemical known as
“Peyrone’s chloride” that was first isolated in the 1840s.
But its use in the treatment of cancer had not yet been
realized.
• Since this initial development in the 1960s, cisplatin has
become one of the leading anticancer drugs worldwide.

17. Warfarin
• Warfarin began with the drama of dead cattle, dead rodents,
and a failed suicide before becoming the most popular
anticlotting drug in the world. It is used by as many as 1 percent
of adults in the UK.
• During the 1920s, the northern US and Canada experienced an
epidemic of dying cattle that were bleeding profusely. An
investigation determined that the problem was caused by the
cattle eating moldy silage made from sweet clover, and so the
case was closed at that time.
• Then, in the 1940s, Karl Link and his student Harold Campbell in
Wisconsin isolated the compound responsible for the
anticoagulant properties in sweet clover. This was developed
into warfarin, which was licensed as a rat poison in 1948. Now,
the most popular use of warfarin is in the prevention and
treatment of diseases like stroke that are caused by blood clots.
The drug was not licensed for use in humans until 1954 after a
US military recruit’s failed suicide attempt showed that warfarin
could be used in a nonfatal manner.

18. Botox
• Almost everyone has heard of Botox and its infamous
face-freezing effect, leaving countless “celebrities”
devoid of facial emotion. But fewer are aware of the
drug’s surprising origins. Botox is actually a neurotoxin
that is made from a purified form of the botulinum
toxin that causes botulism.
• It was first used as a drug to prevent muscle spasms
within the body, specifically for people suffering from
eyelid or vocal cord spasms. However, its usage
around the eyes had some unexpected effects. The
drug began to diminish wrinkles around the brow area
of the face, which led to its use in cosmetic surgery to
reduce facial wrinkles and to smooth skin.
• The rapid evolution of this treatment has led to Botox
cosmetic surgery becoming one of the most popular
medical treatments, with over seven million
procedures in the US alone in 2016.

19. Viagra (Sildenafil) • There is no doubt that Viagra is a highly used
and appreciated pharmaceutical discovery
worldwide
• However, the story of its discovery is a little
more sedate. It started in Merthyr Tydfil, a
small Welsh town in the UK. Scientists testing
a new angina-prevention drug received
reports of an unexpected effect from the
volunteers.
• Male participants were experiencing more
frequent erections. Further research
indicated that it was indeed the angina
medication causing this effect, and thus, the
“little blue pill” was born.
• It was marketed as the first oral treatment for
erectile dysfunction in 1998. Sildenafil acts by
inhibiting cGMP-specific phosphodiesterase
type 5.

20. What do Stories Offer?
• Associative memory
• Ease and comfort of recollection, ease of teaching
• Experiential learning
• Confidence in teaching style
• Unsophisticated and sometimes mass-communication
• Message and sometimes very strong ethical and moral message
• Continuation of the idea though generations
• ..