How Basel changed the world By Matthias Buschle and Daniel Hagmann
Christoph Merian Verlag
Table of Contents p. 9 Introduction p. 13 “ Sugar … spinach … haemoglobin. ” The measurements of Gustav von Bunge p. 20 “ This is such stuff as dreams are made of. ” The discovery of LSD
p. 28 Freidorf and Bauhaus. Global architecture on Basel foundations p. 34 Ice-skaters, Idioms, Slang and Erasmus of Rotterdam
p. 39 The Art of Art Dealing. Art Basel p. 44 The Bells of Basel. The modern woman and world peace p. 50 Excuse me, but where is Basel III ? The city and the Bank for International Settlements p. 55 A “ painting to dream about �. Die Toteninsel p. 60 Love of Animals, Bone Screws, IPOs. The boom in accident surgery
p. 65 Cortisone and Vitamin C. Tadeus Reichstein, a master of the tiniest substances p. 71 A Bitter-Sweet Success Story. The missions, slave liberation and the cocoa trade p. 77 Habent sua fata libelli. The Civilizing Process p. 82 A Bad Leg. Paracelsus and the reform of modern medicine
p. 90 Romantic Matriarchy. Johann Jakob Bachofen and mother right p. 96 The Stumbling Block. The origins of global nature conservation p. 103 Poison for the World. Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane becomes
p. 114 SPQB instead of SPQR. Conclave and papal coronation in Basel p. 121 Nietzsche’s First Book. The tragedy at the birth of his philosophy
DDT
p. 129 Explosive ! Christian Friedrich Schönbein and guncotton
p. 108 A Song for Peace. Mediating between revolution and monarchy in Basel
p. 134 A Clash of Cultures. The commotion caused by the first printing of the Koran
p. 141 New Early Music. The Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and Paul Sacher p. 148 “ In Basel I founded the Jewish State. ” The Zionist Congress in Basel p. 154 A Typeface travels the World. How the Haas Grotesk became Helvetica
p. 160 The Bernoulli Century. Eight representatives of one family influence the world. p. 164 Russian Reverse. Yet another change p. 173 Thanks p. 175 Imprint
Introduction “ Is it possible for the flap of a butterfly’s wing in Brazil to set off a tornado in Texas ? ” The mathematician, meteorologist and co-inventor of Chaos Theory, Edward N. Lorenz, raised this issue in 1972. In our little chronicle, How Basel changed the world, we intend to pursue this butterfly effect, albeit from a rather local perspective : the centre of the world in this book is Basel. Here too, world-shaking events have taken place and the effects of experiences and discoveries here have ultimately been felt across the globe – irrespective of their apparent irrelevance at the time or their subordinate importance, as well as the role originally played by chance. The German news magazine Der Spiegel called the city of Basel a “ global city in pocket-book for-
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mat ”. But is Basel really a city of world importance ? Although global players of world renown have been active here, and indeed still are – one only has to think of Erasmus of Rotterdam, Friedrich Nietzsche, Herzog & de Meuron and the Basel “ Chemische ” (chemical industries) – Basel is more a provincial town than a metropolis. What is more, in the original sense of the term “ provincial ” it is an independent part of a larger whole. If small events can unpredictably alter a system in the long-term, then world history can also be changed from Basel. There would be a correspondence between the butterfly in Brazil and the black-headed gull in the air above the so-called knee of the river Rhine … This book tracks down such impacts by viewing the world from Basel and asking : What happened here that had global consequences ? What ideas and products from Basel have influenced the course of world history ? How Basel changed the world is a book about local history, written out of love of country, and very much in the spirit of the great Swiss author Gerhard Meier : “ I believe that you only become a world citizen through being a provincial. You have to go through the official channels : from provincial to global citizen. ” How Basel changed the world may involve a touch of navel gazing, but it does so without self-aggrandizement. It is based on a different prototype, namely, the St. Mary Mead Principle. This fictional English town is in a position to present remarkable crime statistics : over a space of
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about forty years, sixteen murders were committed there. In the words of Miss Marple : “ Terrible things happen in a place like this, I tell you. You have the opportunity to observe things here like you never have in a city. ” Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, a somewhat singular older lady, solves her cases with the help of a simple but extremely effective principle : she questions odd everyday things, finding in them the key to the crimes. “ Who cut holes in Mrs Jones’s net shopping bag ? Why did Mrs Sims only wear her new fur coat once ? ” How Basel changed the world does not engage in criminalistics, but like St. Mary Mead, Basel here becomes a backdrop against which to view the world. But why Basel ? The words of at least one prominent witness speak for the choice of the city on the knee of the Rhine : “ Basel seems to me to be either at the heart of Christianity, or else to be situated not very far from it. ” Enea Silvio Piccolomini, later known as Pope Pius II, wrote this on the occasion of the Council of Basel (1431 – 1449). To put it in today’s terms : What is special about Basel is not that this city is more closely linked than any other with world history, but the way in which it is linked. Whereby “ world ” here means not “ the whole world ” but rather “ the surrounding world ”, the concentrically expandable region around the city. Sometimes the impacts have extended far out over the world’s oceans, sometimes they have only effected Europe. This book is an “ essay ” in the original sense, an experiment. It actually consists of a number of
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essays, freely formulated texts in a non-scientific language. It is a book that keep to the facts, while sometimes pointing up links with a certain relish and humour The choice of stories adheres to the same principle : whereas an attempt has been made to take the most important “ world events ” into account, the intention is not to flaunt achievement. The small, sometimes almost forgotten story is of equal importance. How Basel changed the world could of course have many more pages and include, for example, the significance of the 20th century church father, Karl Barth, the first Indian rhinoceros worldwide to be born in a zoo, the impact on everyday life of those little helpers Valium and Ritalin, the history of ready-made pastry, the links between capital, rum and the slave trade, the settlement of the dangerous giant hogweed in Europe or the birth of the concept of freedom from pain. Matthias Buschle and Daniel Hagmann
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“ Sugar … spinach … haemoglobin. ” The measurements of Gustav von Bunge “ 100 g dry matter contain mg of iron : Sugar … 0 / Blood serum … 0 / Chicken egg white … trace / Honey … 1.2 / Rice … 1.0 – 2.0 / Pearl barley … 1.4 – 1.5 / Pears … 2.0 / Dates … 2.1 / cow’s milk … 2.3 / mother’s milk … 2.3 – 3.1 / Plums … 2.8 / dog’s milk … 3.2 / figs … 3.7 / raspberries … 3.9 / peeled hazelnuts … 4.3 / Barley … 4.5 / Cabbage, inner yellow leaves … 4.5 / Rye … 4.9 / Peeled almonds … 4.9 / Wheat … 5.5 / Grapes (Malaga) … 5.6 / Blueberries … 5.7 / Potatoes … 6.4 / Peas … 6.2 – 6.6 / Cherries, black, stone-less … 7.2 / Beans, white … 8.3 / Carrots … 8.6 / Wheat bran … 8.8 / Strawberries … 8.6 – 9.3 / Lentils … 9.5 / Almonds, brown skins … 9.5 / Cherries, red, stone-less … 10 / Hazelnuts, brown skins … 13 / Apples … 13 / Dandelion,
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leaves … 14 / Cabbage, outer green leaves … 17 / Asparagus … 20 / Egg yolk … 10 – 24 / Spinach … 33 – 39 / Pig’s blood … 226 / Hematogen … 290 / Hemoglobin … 340 ” It was this table compiled by the Basel physiologist Gustav von Bunge (1844 – 1920) that consolidated the victory of spinach as the vegetable with the highest iron content. It was printed in the first edition of his Lehrbuch der Physiologie des Menschen (Textbook of Physiological and Pathological Chemistry) in 1901. The iron values rise as the list of substances proceeds : sugar has no iron, haemoglobin, the colour component of red blood vessels, has the most (moreover, haematogen is a substance that von Bunge himself first tracked down ; the word “ haematogen ” – coined by him as a transitional term – means blood-producer). Spinach is the last vegetable on the list, so it is the vegetable containing the most iron. There is a decisive qualification, however, and this is mentioned in the first line of the list : “ contained in 100 g dry matter ”. Now we do not eat spinach in powder form. The plant consists to a good 90 % of water, meaning that what we eat only contains 3.3 to 3.9 mg iron per 100 g – which may make spinach an iron-rich vegetable, but does not achieve the outstanding values of the powder form. Faulty reasoning : The spinach example is often used in reference texts and newspaper articles when writing about faulty reasoning. After all, this error had far-reaching effects : generations of chil-
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dren were fed spinach, although only very few of them like the bitter-tasting vegetable. There are even stories about mothers cooking vanilla pudding with spinach in the hope that this sweet camouflage might make eating it more pleasant for their children. There was a similar trick behind the invention of the comic figure Popeye the Sailor Man in the USA in 1929 ; one year later, Popeye even made it into animated cartoons. In critical situations – not in his early years, but only when Popeye was used in nutrition campaigns – the sailor opened a tin of spinach and ate it. Immediately, he turned into a muscle man who overcame his opponents through the power of spinach. In any case, the sure winner in this early PR-campaign was the manufacturer of tinned spinach : consumption of it increased by a third as a result. A thinker. But back to Basel and Gustav von Bunge. He was born in Dorpat (today Tartu, Estonia), where the family belonged to the small German upper-class. It was in Dorpat that he completed his chemistry studies and wrote his post-doctoral treatise in the field of physiology. He then went on to study medicine in Leipzig and Strasbourg and received a doctorate in medical science from the University of Leipzig. In 1885 he was appointed to a professorial chair at the University of Basel, where he lived, researched and taught until his death. Gustav von Bunge was an excellent scientist with an equivalent reputation who opted to remain
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in Basel although he was offered professorships elsewhere. He is regarded as a trailblazer in many fields of physiological research : he laid the foundations for vitamin research, was a pioneer in the research of milk and mineral substances and he was among the first to draw attention to the dangers of industrial sugar, alcohol and nicotine. Today he is mainly only referred to in two contexts : the spinach issue, and his support of the temperance movement. After all, von Bunge believed that excessive consumption of alcohol could lead to damage of the genome. A thought. One important discovery by Gustav von Bunge was the role of iron in nutrition. In the course of his research on milk he established that this fluid actually contained very little iron (see the table above). However, as iron was already considered to be a vital substance at the time, von Bunge did research on new-born animals, wondering where young animals got the important iron from. His conclusions were astonishing, here too with reference to dry matter : in the case of mammals, the new-born animals get a large quantity of iron from their mother. Her depot is reduced in the first weeks of their life, but it is sufficient until the young animals are themselves capable of eating food containing iron. Von Bunge’s prime example were guinea pigs : they eat greenery immediately after they are born, which is why their supply of iron is so small. It was for this reason that the physiologist examined the iron content of different food stuffs,
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publishing his findings in a total of three successive textbooks which were issued in several editions and languages. This was how his table with the iron values was disseminated. The scientist was not only a theorist, but was also very interested in practical application, which led him to make concrete suggestions about nutrition. Von Bunge found out, for example, that white flour contains very little iron : “ In addition to the poor iron content of milk there is the surprising fact of lack of iron in the most important vegetable foodstuffs, cereals [i. e. grains], at least in the form in which they are generally eaten, that is, with their seed coat removed, the so-called bran. When rice grain reaches the market the coat has already been removed ; it corresponds not to barley corn, but rather to pearl barley or white flour for bread. When flour is bagged the coat, the so-called bran, is separated from the flour. […] The iron in cereals is contained in the coat. Wheat bran contains five times as much iron as wheat flour. ” For this reason, von Bunge advocated whole grain bread : “ Bran bread is four times better than white bread : 1. It contains more iron ; 2. It contains more calcium […] ; 3. It stimulates peristalsis thanks to its cellulose content […] ; 4. It cleans the teeth. ” He suggested meat as the main source of iron, plus vegetables : “ Apart from the above-mentioned, these include bran bread, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and legumes. ” Von Bunge’s concerns illustrate the altered role of nutrition in industrial society : it was no
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longer defined in terms of hunger and satiety, shortage and stores, but also in terms of health. Success : Von Bunge’s suggestions on nutrition became widely known. A claim made at a medical congress in 1895 should serve to illustrate this. One Professor Heubner stated : “ I can certainly say that I myself was very happy about having got to know the first work by Mr. Bunge in this connection and I have followed all his studies with the greatest interest. Meantime I have come to realise that it is of extraordinary advantage to give young children even vegetables at an early age. In my own circle – where one has first to gain people’s trust – I have sometimes met with the greatest astonishment in this connection when I have said to parents who consulted me : ‘ Give the child – which has perhaps 8 teeth – a spoon full of spinach or carrots or the likes every day. ’ I have done this on the basis of long and in-depth experience. Recently, recognition of the usefulness of this approach has also spread to Berlin. ” Here – and von Bunge himself quotes that professor in his textbook – spinach achieved its undeserved fame through the backdoor, as it were, from the mouth of a fellow-researcher, given that von Bunge did not question the reference to spinach in this quotation. So he is not altogether innocent of the miseries experienced by so many children with spinach. A thought experiment. But things could have been worse. After all, Gustav von Bunge did sug-
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gest another foodstuff as a source of iron – fortunately without much resonance : “ A little piece of blood sausage renders the same service. ” Just imagine, vanilla pudding with blood sausage. Bu. Bunge, Gustav von : Lehrbuch der Physiologie des Menschen. Leipzig 1905. Feron, Francois : Spinat enthält viel Eisen. In Bouvet, JeanFrancois et al (eds.) : Vom Eisen im Spinat und anderen populären Irrtümern. Beliebte Volksweisheiten und kuriose Denk fehler unter die Lupe genommen. Munich 1999, pp. 183 – 186. Schmidt, Gerhard : Das geistige Vermächtnis von Gustav v. Bunge. Basel 1973. Winkler, Willi : Die grosse Spinat-Verschwörung. In Süddeutsche Zeitung. Munich, 7 August 2010.
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“ This is such stuff as dreams are made of. ” The discovery of LSD If this is chance, then there is method in it : a laboratory accident led to the discovery of the hallucinogenic effect of lysergic acid diethylamide (better known under the abbreviation LSD). On 16 April 1943 the chemist Albert Hofmann (1906 – 2008) returned to his laboratory at the pharmaceuticals company Sandoz in Basel after his lunch-break intending to continue his tests with that active agent. To do so, he had to produce the agent again in a process of synthesis. In the last phase of that synthesis it happened : Hofmann came in contact with the fluid. At first he did not notice anything, but in the course of the afternoon he felt somewhat strange and had to interrupt his work and go home, “ as I was befallen with a great unrest, plus a slight
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feeling of dizziness ”. At home he lay down and fell into a not unpleasant state similar to intoxication and marked by extremely agitated imaginative activity. For two hours Albert Hofmann lived in a different world. He recalled later : “ The outside world changed as if in a dream. Objects increasingly assumed the quality of a relief with unusual dimensions and colours became more brilliant. Even my self-perception and my feeling of time were altered. If I kept my eyes closed, I was overwhelmed by an uninterrupted stream of fantastic images of extraordinary plasticity and vivacity, accompanied by an intense kaleidoscopic play of colours. ” When Hofmann emerged from this state he immediately suspected poisoning. As the natural scientist in him was determined to get to the bottom of the surprising effect of the substance, the following Monday he began a self-test – and fortunately informed his laboratory assistant about his intentions. A trip into the unknown. For although Hofmann swallowed only a tiny amount of LSD (0.25 mg), what then began was what would be called a horror trip today. After about three-quarters of an hour the scientist became dizzy and nauseous and suffered from visual disorders and bouts of laughter. His head and hands felt cold, his throat dry, disturbing emotions alternated with feelings of numbness. Everything in his visual range fluctuated and became distorted as if in a curved mirror.
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Hofmann just about managed to ride home on his bicycle, accompanied by his laboratory assistant. The woman next door brought him litres of milk as detoxification, but he suddenly mistook her for an evil witch. The doctor who was called was baffled : pulse, blood pressure and breathing were normal, only the pupils were extremely dilated, and the chemist was incapable of formulating a single coherent sentence. Inside, Hofmann felt as if he were in the grip of a demon, powerless, alien. In the late evening he fell asleep exhausted – only to wake up the following day feeling like new : his breakfast tasted wonderful and the garden glittered and glowed in the sunlight. This extraordinary emotional state lasted all day long. The miracle drug. The researcher was very surprised by the intense effect of such a tiny amount of the substance. Further self-tests followed, and then Sandoz also tested the substance in a series of experiments with animals. Subsequently, the chemists developed different altered LSD products with no hallucinatory effect. The most effective of them was marketed as medication for treating migraine under the brand-name Deseril. The use of LSD in psychiatry was much more consequential. The first systematic use on people took place at the psychiatric clinic of the University of Zurich in 1947. The pharmaceuticals company sold LSD for psychiatric treatment and scientific research under the trade name of Delysid. The patient information leaflet recommends the medi-
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cation “ for mental unblocking in analytical psychotherapy, especially in case of anxiety and compulsive neuroses ”, but among possible fields of application mentioned were also “ experimental examinations of the essence of psychoses ”. In the 1950s it was believed that schizophrenia, depression, alcoholism, arthritis and much more could be healed using LSD. The sacrament of the Summer of Love. Over the years, however, instead of becoming a big seller for the pharmaceuticals company and a glorious chapter in the discoverer’s career, LSD became a problem child – which is how Albert Hofmann put it himself in retrospect in 1979. After all, in the 1960s the substance mutated into a “ chemical sacrament ”, as one fan put it. Consuming drugs was part of the new lifestyle in the counter-culture in America that grew out of the Civil Rights Movement and the protests against the Vietnam War. The aim was to reprogram the brain and liberate users from learned patterns, such as aggression, conventional thinking or poor self-estimation – through the use of psychedelic drugs. While this was still the privilege of a relatively small circle of scientists and artists in the 1950s, now millions of Americans were gaining experience with LSD. Hippies, Hells Angels, rock musicians, they all wanted to try “ acid ”, as it was known in the jargon. The 1967 Summer of Love made LSD the ultimate party drug – at the same time forming the high point and the end of the LSD wave.
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“ The Politics of Ecstasy ”. Timothy Leary played a major role in this drugs culture facilitated by Hofmann’s discovery. Leary was a military psychologist and doctor, who worked with alternative therapy methods in California. At first he experimented with Psilocybin, a substance made out of Mexican mushrooms. But then a much more potent drug came on the market, LSD. Leary believed he had found the key to successful therapy, although his experiments can no longer be verified. LSD euphoria, on the other hand, also leads to random consumption, horror trips and suicide attempts. The result was considerable resistance in the form of a new anti-drugs policy. The substance was prohibited in the United States in 1966, and a few years later in Germany. Timothy Leary’s major confession of faith, his book The Politics of Ecstasy published in 1968, was on the index in Germany for 25 years. Leary himself was repeatedly arrested. He broke out of prison and, in 1971, sought political asylum in Switzerland, in vain. However, the Swiss authorities refused to deport him to the States. A consciousness change with consequences. But that is not the end of the LSD story. The drug may not be addictive, but it is also not suitable for daily consumption, which is why its sales quickly declined after it was prohibited. Towards the end of the 20th century LSD gained in popularity again on the techno scene. Its impact on culture in the late 20th century however, is irreversible, at least according to the Legend of LSD, as the German
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author Günter Amendt called his critical review. Were the cultural revolution of the1960s, sexual liberation, the breakthrough for ecological thinking, the boom in pop music, really only due to the psychedelic power of LSD ? Would there be no computer revolution, no Internet, no Apple success story without LSD, as some convinced fans argue ? LSD during the Cold War. LSD is certainly no normal substance. It has a special status, holding out the promise of religious, spiritual and sensual experience. What is more, it is not just a medication and a drug, but potentially also a chemical weapon. As early as 1953, the CIA began its Mind Control Project, a decades-long series of tests with LSD aimed at finding out how healthy people reacted to the substance. The CIA is said to have wanted to order ten kilos of LSD from Sandoz for this purpose, a quantity sufficient to send millions of people on a trip. The experiment was discontinued in the US in the 1970s under pressure from Congress. In other western states too, similar tests were carried out with more or less voluntary candidates. Presumably the Warsaw Pact allies did comparable tests during the Cold War. The Czech pharmaceuticals company Sposa produced LSD and exported it to the Eastern Bloc countries. GDR military handbooks describe possible uses of psycho-poisons like LSD in great detail. Chance and sustainability. LSD was invented, or rather found, in Basel. Albert Hofmann’s discovery
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