Karl Paul Link

The Discovery of Dicumarol and Its Sequels

THE STORY of Dieumarol* has been told several times by me in the past 17 years, and often by others. Like any good story it need not be told in exactly the same manner each time. In Wisconsin it has become a kind of legend. I shall consider only the high water marks of certain chapters. Fortunately the basic scientific facts on the discovery and development have already been thoroughly recorded1-6 so that little new information on Dieumarol and its sequels needs to be revealed here. However, when I do introduce new material it will be restricted to that which is documented or sustainable via iemoranda or letters. The story begins some 36 years ago on the prairies of North Dakota and in Alberta, Canada. In the 1920s a new malady of eattle involving fatal bleeding showed up almost simultaneously in these areas. The veterinarians, Schofield and Roderick, were forced to conelude that the cause of the disease was neither