Science: Biochemist’s Boast

Biochemist Henry Borsook of Caltech declared last week that within 100 years “neurologists will be able to control the evil in mankind on a scientific basis.” In less blasphemous, more scientific language he elaborated:

“In the future when a man behaves in a criminal manner, we will not say he is crazy or vicious. . . . Instead we will know that too much pyruvic acid has accumulated in his thalamic cells, or that there is no cocarboxylase, a high-brow term for Vitamin BI, operating in his thalamus. We will be able to tell that he did not grow enough association neurones descending from his cortex, so that now he does not deliver enough acetylcholine to his mid-brain.”