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Asked by 633prmc34 to vediacan, Richard, Alex, Lesley on 13 Jun 2015.
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Richard Prince answered on 13 Jun 2015:
That’s a great question. I thought about all kinds of fancy machines e.g. an electron microscope, but they wouldn’t do much without a decent electricity supply to power them and when they broke down, no-one would be able to fix them. I also thought about which single drug I could take back – perhaps statins or penicillin, but that would either only treat a single disease or would start us on the road to antibiotic resistance even earlier. So, I decided to take back a copy of a really good pharmacology textbook – “Rang and Dales’s Pharmacology” and I would put it in the hands of someone like Edward Jenner (who pioneered the smallpox vaccine). It has tons of information on not just drugs, but also the body and how it works. It would bring 1800 up to speed on the structure of cells, what receptors and enzymes are, and how they work. In short, it would make a huge impact.
My son had a different answer. He said “print out the whole of Wikipedia” and take that back. Given the inaccuracies in some of the articles, I’m not sure that would be the best idea!
All the best
Richard
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Vedia Can answered on 16 Jun 2015:
Hi 633prmc34,
This has to be one of the hardest questions I have had to answer. I wouldn’t take anything back because I would like to experience what the great pioneers of Pharmacology experienced in the year 1800; observe them and learn from them. It would be interesting to see how their brain’s would come up with all the ideas they had to find these cures. After all Pharmacology has advanced progressively in a positive way since the 18th Century. So, why change anything?
Best Wishes,
Vedia
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Alex Agyemang answered on 16 Jun 2015:
Hi 633prmc34,
Great question, I would take back knowledge on unravelling of the human genome because such knowledge would have completely changed our understanding of diseases and potentially expedited drug discovery.
Best wishes,
Alex
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