Dark Matters: Twisted But True (2011) s02e04 Episode Script

This is your one and only warning.
Your screen will soon be filled with dramatized stories of scientific research that some people may find controversial and disturbing.
Viewer discretion is advised.
Ask yourself, does progress always come at a price? Are some experiments too risky or just wrong? A little curiosity can't hurt anyone Can it? Scientific knowledge cannot be unlearned.
It has a power of its own.
No matter how or why it is obtained, good or evil intentions do not always result in good and evil outcomes as you'll see in these three stories of experimentation andunforeseen consequences.
There's a doctor whose pursuit of the truth drives him to the most repulsive extremes imaginable, and the daredevil nuclear physicist who plays a lethal game with the heart of an A-bomb.
But first, meet a man whose radical brain surgery makes him a prisoner of the past.
Through his loss, we gain greater understanding of the mysteries of memory.
Henry Molaison is not a well man.
A childhood fall has damaged his brain irreparably.
Gotcha.
Well? Well, what is it? Uh must do something.
Hmm.
Aah! Come on.
Henry.
The accident has left him with severe epilepsy.
Mike! Mike! Henry, come on, boy.
Don't do this.
By his late 20s, he's having over 10 fits a day.
Henry! Henry! Henry! Mike! Mike, where are you? The normal electrical activity of the brain occurs in regular patterns like this.
But during a seizure, abnormal rhythms are established that wash across the brain, using the brain's own communication lines.
The net result is that the brain loses control of the body, and it can result in tonic-clonic seizures, short-term memory loss, and, in some circumstances, even death.
Dr.
William Beecher Scoville is an authority on brain disorders.
But Henry Molaison has him stumped.
He's tried every known epileptic drug, but nothing works.
Ah, Henry.
Brain science today is in its infancy, but in the 1950s, it had barely reached conception.
There was a rough idea of what areas of the brain were responsible for which processes, but the ways they interacted or worked together weren't really known.
In fact, most of what was known was only known because of people who had survived brain injuries, and so everything new that was attempted was a step in the dark.
Scoville is a charismatic, high-octane risk taker.
To help Molaison, he got a new and radical idea.
Story of my life, Doc.
I'd like to try something, Henry.
Usually when a brain short-circuits like yours, we take out half a region called the hippocampus.
Only your case is so severe, I'd like to take out the whole thing.
Now, it's never been done before, but I've got a hunch it'll work.
It's thought that some epileptic seizures may be caused by an excess of the neurotransmitter glutamate in the brain.
Now, when there's too much glutamate, an excess of calcium is released, and inside the brain, that can be very dangerous.
Now, the hippocampus generates glutamate, and so removing it should decrease calcium levels and decrease the frequency of seizures.
Uh-huh.
I don't know, Doc.
Sounds kind of risky.
Life is risk, Henry.
And to be honest, with the life you have -- aah! Bob! What have you got to lose? Scoville was willing to perform this surgery because his patient was in desperate need.
He had very uncontrolled epilepsy.
He had very little quality of life.
Still, he was playing a little bit fast and loose because he didn't know what the outcome would be.
Despite his uncertainty, Henry agrees to the surgery.
Cauterize.
Dr.
Scoville burns out Henry's entire hippocampus.
Time will tell if he is being boldor reckless.
In all new surgical procedures, there's an element of risk, but there's also a first time when it must be tried in a human patient.
These days, we would review procedures like this through institutional review boards, but in Scoville's time, much more was left to the discretion of the surgeon.
After a few days, the signs are good.
Good morning, Henry.
Hey.
Not a single fit, Doc.
Tremendous.
Nothing for days now.
Henry, this is Dr.
Brenda Milner.
She'll be doing some tests with you today.
It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am.
Oh, and you're working with the best, you know.
Doc Scoville is an ace.
Enjoy your breakfast, Henry.
Henry's epilepsy seems to be cured.
So, what's the problem? Just wait.
Dr.
Scoville didn't know what the hippocampus really did.
I mean, no one did.
The operation was pure trial and error.
What he did know was that less hippocampus meant fewer seizures.
Morning.
Hey.
Steady as a Chevy, Doc.
That's great.
Hi, I'm Henry.
Pleased to meet you, ma'am.
See what I mean? Henry's operation has done more than affect his epilepsy.
Henry's memories up to the operation are largely undamaged.
We went to Florida.
Mom and dad took turns driving.
I had my head out the window, listening to the engine the whole way down.
Good.
Now, what do you remember about yesterday? Um Now -- now I think about it, not a lot.
Uh But he cannot create new memories at all.
How about this morning? No, I -- I don't remember.
Henry, can you tell me what you just had for lunch? Henry Molaison is a tragic victim and a scientific miracle.
Something has gone wrong with Henry Molaison's brain during radical surgery to treat his epilepsy.
Henry, this is Dr.
Brenda Milner.
It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am.
It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am.
It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am.
It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am.
Henry's memory is broken.
But his condition could provide unique insights into the workings of the human brain.
We can experiment on the brains of mice all we want.
But a mouse cannot tell us what it's thinking or feeling.
So the uncomfortable truth is that Henry was a godsend to brain researchers.
By looking at what he could or could not do, they could figure out how memory works.
Okay, Henry, I'd like you to remember the number 273.
Can you do that? Got it.
Yeah.
273.
Right.
I'll be back in 15 minutes.
Don't forget -- 273.
Uh-huh.
The doctors are fascinated by what he can and can't recall.
And the number is? Right.
How did you remember it? I just kept thinking about it.
That's wonderful.
I'm sorry.
Have we met? I'm Henry Molaison.
So, what can we say? Quarter an hour? Henry's condition transforms our understanding of memory.
Our immediate moment-to-moment impressions of the world are recorded in short-term memory.
One hour, it goes down to? But short-term memories are fleeting.
To remain in the brain, they must be transferred into long-term memory, filed away for future recall.
We know, thanks to Henry now, that the hippocampus is crucial in the creation of new long-term memories.
It takes memories of what's happening now and makes them into things that we can recall about last week, about last year.
They're not stored in the hippocampus, but the hippocampus is very important in creating them.
Henry becomes the most famous patient in neuroscience, a man imprisoned in the present.
So, tell me what you remember about your last fit.
But for Dr.
Scoville, life moves on.
He, too, must learn to forget.
Scoville's surgical procedure made him world-famous.
But we know from some of his colleagues that he felt guilty about the destruction that he had created.
There is a cost to going first.
It's a cost that someone has to bear.
Some people will work with Henry for over 40 years.
Good morning.
I'm Dr.
Milner.
Good morning, ma'am.
And every morning, they will have to introduce themselves to him for the first time.
Wow.
This looks real interesting.
I'm Henry, by the way.
Delighted to meet you.
Where is Doc Scoville? Well, I'd like to work with you today if that's okay, Henry.
I'm gonna ask you to take a pencil Mm-hmm.
and I just want you to draw around the star as best as you can, okay? All right.
And I'm gonna take some notes, all right? Tracing a line while watching your hand in a mirror is totally counterintuitive.
Nobody can come to that task and get it right away.
What it takes is practice.
Hi.
I'm Dr.
Milner.
Good morning, ma'am.
You want to take a seat over here? Henry has no idea he's tried this before.
Hello.
I'm Henry Molaison.
Hi.
Well, now, what have you got here? His defective memory prevents him from remembering his many previous attempts.
Yet each time, Henry's skill improves.
It's as though his body remembers what his mind cannot.
Well, that was kind of easy.
Henry reveals that our understanding of memory is hopelessly simplistic.
There is not just one type of memory.
There are at least two -- procedural and declarative.
Declarative memories are the things that you remember remembering -- the places you've been, things you've said to people, things they've said to you.
We went to Florida.
But procedural memory allows us to accomplish tasks -- physical ones, like driving a car or riding a bike.
Now, you can drive in a car and have a conversation with somebody, and when you reach your destination, you will remember the conversation.
That's declarative memory.
But you won't remember all of the thinking it took to operate the vehicle and successfully get to your destination, which is procedural memory.
Oh, I'm Henry.
Hi, Henry.
Take a seat.
Once he's learned a new skill, even years later, Henry never forgets it.
Well, now, what have you got here? You could say that Henry's bad luck was our good luck.
Through Henry, we learned about things like declarative and procedural memory, and we learned their importance in the fight against diseases like Dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
If you'd ever met Henry, he wouldn't remember you, but we'll never forget Henry's contribution to science.
Gotcha.
But every day, Henry wakes up pretty much the same 27-year-old man who had radical surgery.
Hello, Dr.
Scoville? Hey, Doc, you in there? He remembers his 27th birthday This place has really changed.
but not his 50th How'd he do it so fast? or even his 70th.
So, what's this? The truth has to be hidden from him.
His 27 years of memories are trapped in an old man's body.
Dr.
Scoville! Hey, Doc! Henry, Henry, you shouldn't be in here.
But it's -- no, no.
Come on.
Don't worry.
Come on, Henry.
Come on.
Come on.
Now, listen, Henry, don't worry.
I promise tomorrow it'll all be fine, okay? When scientific fact runs into mindless prejudice it can be hard to make people believe.
One doctor goes to truly disgusting extremes to overturn bigotry and save the lives of thousands.
But will anyone listen? If medical science finds a cure to a deadly disease, you'd think the world would sit up and take notice, wouldn't you? But changing minds can be tougher than changing medicine.
Sometimes people would rather die than be proven wrong.
The United States Public Health Service has sent Dr.
Joseph Goldberger to the South to deal with an outbreak of a new disease -- Pellagra.
It's believed to be highly contagious, spread by germs that pass easily from person to person.
No, no, no.
It's fine, my dear.
Don't be scared.
You can't hurt me.
Hmm, I've caught a disease or two in my time.
I'm a Hardy fellow -- for a northerner.
Pellagra is generally known as the four d's -- diarrhea, dermatitis, dementia, and death.
When someone gets pellagra, it usually starts off with lethargy and weakness, and it progresses to dermatitis, which is lesions, which occur on the back of the hands.
In the later stages, patients become demented and often die from the disease, and those that don't die are often left with an incurable dementia.
In the U.
S.
, Pellagra starts with a single case in Georgia in 1902.
It appears from nowhere and spreads rapidly to prisons, orphanages, and hospitals throughout the South.
By 1914, there are tens of thousands of cases.
Thousands of people have died.
Goldberger and his wife set up home in Mississippi so he can figure out the cause of this devastating epidemic.
How is it? Oh, I don't know.
Mm.
I don't know.
You know, it should be obvious.
Water? No, it can't be.
If it was water, it would be in geographical clusters.
No, Joe.
I mean do you want water.
Oh, God.
I'm sorry.
It's not water, though -- Pellagra.
Ah, it's not food, either.
Nothing's poisoning them.
Everyone else seems very certain it's contagious.
No, no, no, no.
That's just foolish.
People in daily contact with pellagra aren't catching it.
I don't know why I even wrote it on the board.
Sit with me a little.
Mm.
Eat.
You don't eat, you get sick.
You are a genius.
It would fit perfectly! My God! I've been so dull! It's what they're not eating.
It's diet.
It has to be diet.
Goldberger introduces milk, protein, and vegetables to the corn-heavy diet in some orphanages and asylums.
Pellagra begins to disappear from these institutions.
You're doing really well.
Improved diet cures Pellagra.
But when he tells the Southern Medical Association They do not agree.
His claim that pellagra is not caused by germs but by diet is branded absurd.
He's an outsider making accusations about the southern way of life.
From the very beginning, Goldberger had huge obstacles to overcome.
He's a northern, Jewish, government doctor coming into the South.
Southerners were very resentful of the way they were depicted by their northern colleagues -- that they were ignorant, poor, that they -- undeveloped.
And so the idea that a government doctor's coming in to tell them how to feed their people was completely unwelcome.
How can I get through to people who just won't listen? We have to prove it, Joe -- prove it beyond all doubt.
This isn't something you can prove in a laboratory.
I'd have to experiment on humans, Mary -- on humans.
I mean, who would be willing to contract a disease everybody's terrified of? Goldberger can only experiment on people who have nothing to lose.
Prisoners.
With the Pellagra epidemic raging, the governor of Mississippi promises freedom to prisoners who volunteer for the potentially fatal experiment.
in Goldberger's program to induce the deadly disease Pellagra.
His test subjects include murderers who could walk free if they survive.
Under Goldberger's instruction, they are allowed little more than biscuits, grits, sweet potatoes, fat, and coffee.
Because he's developed the idea that protein is crucial in the prevention of pellagra, he devises an experiment using prisoners where he basically does not allow them to have any protein intake to see if they'll develop the disease.
With hopes of saving thousands, Goldberger is prepared to take lethal risks with his imprisoned human guinea pigs.
Goldberger's prisoner guinea pigs are isolated from any germs, so they cannot catch Pellagra from a contagious source.
In less than six months, the restricted, low-protein diet begins to produce results.
Still feeling unwell then, hmm? And your skin -- may I? Hmm.
Yes, that does look promising -- uh, unpleasant.
Any improvement in the weakness? No? What do you think? Good.
All the men experience weight loss Cross the legs.
weakness, an unsteady gait, skin lesions -- early symptoms of Pellagra.
Of the 11 subjects he studied, six of them were definitively diagnosed with the disease, and the other five developed symptoms, including increased knee reflexes, which is a classic hallmark of the disease.
This was pretty conclusive evidence that Pellagra was caused by dietary issues.
What are you doin' to me, Doc? My head's spinnin'.
My stomach's killin' me.
This is livin' hell, Doc.
When the prisoners get angry, their complaints become ammunition for Goldberger's critics.
The success of his experiment is lost in the outcry over his methods.
You know what this is really about, Mary, don't you? They couldn't care less about the science, about people's lives, about the sick and dying children.
They are obsessed with being criticized by a northerner, and the very worst sort -- a New York Jew, no less.
We should just head home and leave them to it.
They seem to have all the answers.
It's contagious, end of story.
So, Dr.
Goldberger, think harder.
I'll give it to myself.
That'll get their attention.
You're gonna win by giving yourself a fatal disease? Then I'll do just the opposite -- I will try to catch it in every gruesome way there is.
I'll touch Pellagra.
I'll inject it.
Hell, I'll eat it.
And you won't catch it? You're certain? No, no, no.
Not a chance.
Not a chance.
Good.
Then I won't catch it with you.
Contagious diseases are spread through transmission of bodily fluids -- things like saliva, mucus, blood, feces, or even skin samples.
Goldberger obtains samples from anywhere the mythical Pellagra germ could be hiding.
We'll have plenty of skin lesions, and don't stint on the snot and saliva.
You have the urine? Good.
All we need now is some blood and feces.
He mixed these samples with flour to create Pellagra pills, which he actually ingested, or he took samples and actually put them into his own nostrils to try to contract the disease.
Nobody can say Goldberger hasn't tried every possible source of pellagra germs.
Welcome, all, to my filth party.
Flake skin lesions, anyone? Uh, with feces.
And urine.
Now, Joseph, these are all Kosher, I hope? For what we are about to receive.
Because he was so committed to the idea that Pellagra could not be transmitted in this way, he also used injections of blood of pellagra's patients to demonstrate that this was not the way pellagra was caused.
They have consumed every bodily secretion imaginable, tried every source of infection.
But they do not catch pellagra.
The disease is definitely not spread by some unknown germ.
Goldberger and his wife risked their lives.
But southern authorities still dismiss the evidence.
Southerners argue that local diet hasn't changed and cling to the idea that only germs can explain the sudden onset of an epidemic.
What do we have to do? What? What difference does it make if only one woman took part? Joe, you did everything right -- everything.
Oh, this is madness.
People will die.
In the end, Goldberger proved to be right.
It was a dietary deficiency that causes Pellagra.
But confirmation of Goldberger's theory comes too late.
The isolation of that substance -- Niacin, nicotinic acid, Vitamin B3 -- unfortunately came a decade after Goldberger's death.
Too late for Goldberger, too late for southerners who keep dying from pellagra for the next 20 years.
In every experiment, there is an element of uncertainty.
But science depends on those who are unafraid to delve into the unknown.
But when experimenting with a nuclear bomb, something more than fearlessness is required.
When lives are at risk, is common sense too much to ask? Take one overconfident scientist, give him an A-bomb to play with, and you're asking for trouble.
The men and women of the Manhattan Project worked with lethal forces they barely understood.
To win World War II, one of them played fast and loose with safety.
Louis Slotin, a physics prodigy.
He ran key tests on the Manhattan Project.
Now the atom bomb has ended the war with Japan, and these men helped America win it.
Are you sure this is a good idea, Lou? The whole building is made out of wood.
Listen, this thing has got about four ounces of powder.
Even allowing for your rate of 10, at two yards from the target, it should be fine.
I think.
Whoa! Just missed the roof of "P" division! Too bad.
They could do with a few bright sparks in there.
You heard it here first, fellas.
Soon they'll be fixing A-bombs to rockets.
Now, wouldn't that be something, eh? There were at least two types of physicists and scientists at Los Alamos -- people that reluctantly worked on the atomic bomb because they didn't want a Nazi bomb.
Then you had the young people.
For them, the atomic bomb was like a watch -- a very delicate, complex watch -- and their job was to crack it to figure out how to make it tick.
The most dangerous work takes place four miles from the main site in the depths of the Pajarito Canyon in the secret war lab where highly radioactive materials are tested.
Turning a mathematical equation on a piece of paper into a bomb takes a heck of a lot of work, and the people who made that happen experimented with what physicists call good hands, so someone like Louis Slotin was exactly what was needed to make the idea into a reality.
By the summer of 1946, Slotin is preparing to leave Los Alamos.
His replacement is Alvin Graves.
Slotin.
I was worried you might've left.
So, it's the guy who's come for my job, eh? Fellas, you remember Al Graves from site "Y?" He's gonna be in charge of you renegades.
And how about you? More bomb work? No such luck.
I wanted to go to Bikini atoll to see them test this thing.
And Uncle Sam doesn't like Canadians having too much fun.
So it's back to Chicago and the radiobiology lab.
Is this it? Yeah, the mother lode, the core of an A-bomb.
The core of an atomic bomb is actually quite boring to look at.
It's a metallic sphere.
It's made of uranium or plutonium.
And on its own, it's pretty safe.
This thing must be the criticality assembly.
Sure is.
The criticality assembly encases the core with beryllium to test it.
And that's where the core can get dangerous.
Radioactive plutonium naturally emits neutrons, which escape into the atmosphere.
The beryllium reflects those neutrons back inside, where they hit the plutonium atoms, releasing more neutrons.
If they cannot escape, neutrons would multiply uncontrollably, triggering a chain reaction during the test.
Want to see me test this thing? Arty, give me a count, will you? Sure.
The idea is to get the hemispheres as close as possible without actually triggering a chain reaction.
It's called the point of criticality.
The criticality experiment was important because it determined just how much plutonium you would need to make a bomb.
That was crucial for two reasons -- one, to make the bomb work, and two, making plutonium was very hard, very expensive, and took a long, long time, so you didn't want to put in one tiny bit more than you really needed.
Now it gets interesting.
This experiment is incredibly dangerous because if you end up enclosing the core too much, you can get a nuclear chain reaction, and incredibly high doses of radiation could be released.
A nuclear detonation is impossible without additional explosives.
But this is the core of an A-bomb.
Chain-reaction radiation is still deadly.
Louis, you've not put the spacers in.
Ah, she'll be okay.
This is the demon core, remember? Demon core? Do you remember Harry Daghlian? Last year, he was working on the core, and he slipped, and it went critical.
Let's just say it did not end well.
Harry was a good guy.
Sure was.
Anyway, after that, they made us install all sorts of safety baloney, but I would rather trust my own hands.
You'll see.
And trust me -- if you're gonna find out anything interesting, you've got to tickle the dragon's tail a little.
You -- you have done this before, right? Dozens of times, so take it easy.
It's very cool.
As long as the core does not reach criticality, they are safe.
Just a little sliver.
That's it.
Any more than that, and we'll be critical.
Isn't nature beautiful? Chain reaction.
A chain reaction in the core of an A-bomb.
Louis Slotin was hit with a massive amount of radiation in the form of neutrons, X-rays, gamma rays.
These are dangerous forms of radiation which can rip cells apart.
Separating the hemispheres stops the chain reaction instantly, reducing deadly radiation to harmless levels.
Everybody stay exactly where they are.
The scientists are the second set of victims in one year, performing the same type of test on the same A-bomb core.
Mark where you are on the ground.
Now get out.
Go.
Louis Slotin had the presence of mind to take a chalk and write down the position of everyone in that room.
He knew that science knew very little about the effects of massive doses of radiation on the human body, and here was a science experiment that could save thousands of lives in the future.
The men are rushed to Los Alamos Hospital.
I feel sick, all right, but I don't know if it's from the radiation or from watching you.
You should see me eat strudel.
Maybe it didn't go completely critical.
Oh, blue light.
It went crit, all right.
You'll be okay, though.
You're well over 50-50.
I'm sure you are, too, Lou.
We both know I'm not.
My goose is literally cooked.
Nuclear science is a new field.
Doctors know little about how our bodies react to the invisible effects of beta, gamma, and neutron radiation.
Slotin has received all of them at once.
At Hiroshima, what turned out to be more lethal was the radiation poisoning that came afterwards.
By the end of 1945, from radiation poisoning, and over the next two decades, an additional 50,000 people died from radiation poisoning.
Gamma rays have ripped Slotin's cells apart.
He is disintegrating in the Los Alamos Hospital.
Hey, uh, Doc.
I'm getting ulcers on my tongue.
It's kind of fascinating, don't you think? Did you do a blood-cell count yet? I'm guessing you'll see a steep drop -- a sort of curve, like -- lend me a pen, and I'll draw it for you.
Maybe later, Doc.
The dose that Slotin received was over 20,000 chest X-rays all delivered at one time.
The immune system is completely gone, and you have neutrons bombarding into the body, causing damage to the cells, resulting in bleeding and infection.
Hey, Louis, you got a good report from that son of a bitch Groves, no less.
Well, read it out.
It's not every day a fellow gets to hear his own eulogy.
United States War Department General Leslie Groves, head of the U.
S.
nuclear program, issues Slotin a special citation for valor.
Dr.
Slotin's quick reaction, at the immediate risk of his own life, prevented a more serious development of the experiment, which would certainly have resulted in the death of the men working with him.
In hindsight, we could say, "Ah, you know, these people -- they should've been more careful.
" But here's this young man fully realizing how dangerous the work was but also realizing that he was working in the interest of what he thought was democracy and freedom, and he was willing to take those risks.
Eventually, Slotin becomes delirious.
Sometimes you got to tickle the dragon's tail a little.
On the 30th of May, 1946, the demon core claims its second victim.