Abstract

At times scientists manipulate their community's perception of scientific discoveries. The following case study illustrates the extent to which a community's understanding of a discovery was influenced by one of its members. In the 1870s the British physiologist Arthur Gamgee undertook a campaign to insure Andrew Buchanan of Glasgow credit for his blood clotting research, conducted from the early 1830s to the mid-1840s. Gamgee endeavored to establish Buchanan as the discoverer of fibrin ferment, a clotting factor first isolated and named in 1872 by Alexander Schmidt of Dorpat. Gamgee's campaign included the solicitation of support for Buchanan from contemporary physiologists, by discussing Buchanan's work in his publications and by demonstrating through experimentation that the material extracted from Buchanan's washed blood clots was similar, if not identical, to Schmidt's fibrin ferment. Gamgee's influence on the scientific community's perception of the discovery was effective, and Buchanan is generally considered the discoverer of the clotting factor and Schmidt its rediscoverer. However, examination of Buchanan's research in blood coagulation and the context in which he conducted the research reveals that Buchanan is neither the discoverer of fibrin ferment nor even a precursor to Schmidt