In Memoriam:
Alsoph Henry Corwin
1908-2007
by Benjamin C. Garrett
Alsoph H. Corwin died April 30, 2007. He was 99. Corwin spent his professional career on the chemistry faculty of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, and is well remembered for his contributions as a researcher, educator, and mentor. His studies of the biological toxin ricin make his career relevant to the chemical-biological defense community.
A native of Marietta, Ohio, Corwin was a 1928 graduate of Marietta College. His academic achievements at Marietta College earned him membership in Phi Beta Kappa, and he would later receive an honorary doctorate from that college, along with induction into its Hall of Fame. Corwin earned his doctorate in chemistry from Harvard University in 1932, where he studied under James Bryant Conant1. That same year, Corwin joined the Hopkins faculty, where he remained until his retirement in 1973.
During World War II, Corwin was drawn into the work of the National Defense Research Committee (NRDC), where he took charge of US efforts to refine ricin from the seeds of the castor oil plant. He was supported in this work by the Proctor and Gamble Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, at the time one of the largest producers of castor oil. Several Hopkins students assisted him in processing castor oil seeds and characterizing ricin. In the end, various designs for ricin-filled weapons were developed and tested, primarily at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. Problems with dispersal of solid ricin, which tends to agglomerate, plagued these weapons, and their military effectiveness is uncertain.
The war ended in 1945, but Corwin continued his government-sponsored research, perhaps as part of US plans to continue development of ricin weapons. In a move that might seem surprising in retrospect, Corwin and associates filled for a patent for "preparation of toxic ricin" on July 3, 1952. Granted on October 23, 1962, with rights assigned to the US Army, the patent notes the prospect of using ricin in weapons. In 2004, the US Patent and Trademark Office removed the patent from the publicly-accessible materials on its website. This move might have been prompted by concerns that the details in the patent could be used for nefarious purposes.
Corwin had diverse research interests. For example, he developed a chemical method for restoring highly-corroded copper antiquities, a process that helped decipher the Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls. This development coincided with a lifelong interest in archeology and history. That interest showed through in his work on ricin. In his notes, he recorded that he selected the term Kikitin for the non-agglutinating fraction obtained when refining ricin. He wrote that he deliberately used the Hebrew or Egyptian word for the castor-oil plant because the Greek word for this plant, kroton, was already in use for croton oil and the associated croton-oil plant, Croton tiglium. The relevant Biblical text is:
"And the Lord God appointed a plant*, and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from discomfort. So Jonah was exceeding glad because of the plant*. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm which attacked the plant* so that it withered." (Jonah 4:6,7 RSV)
In the Hebrew text, the word used for plant is qiqayon or kikayon. Biblical scholars believe the reference is to the castor-oil plant, which grows rapidly in conditions such as those in Nineveh, where Jonah was living.
In making this selection, Corwin clearly associated "agglutination" with ricin. However research published in the 1970s demonstrated that a separate substance, Ricinus communis agglutin or RCA, is responsible for the agglutinating behavior found in castor seeds. Therefore, the samples that Corwin referred to as Kikitin might well contain highly purified ricin, from which the RCA has been removed.
Corwin received various honors in recognition of his work. One of the most enduring honors is the Alsoph H. Corwin Chair of Chemistry at Hopkins, which became fully endowed in 1997 as a result of gifts from his friends, colleagues, and, most especially, former students.
Sources:
- Marietta (Ohio) College Hall of Fame.
- Harry L. Craig, Otto H. Alderks, Alsoph H. Corwin, Sally H. Dieke, and Charlotte L. Karel, "Preparation of toxic ricin," US Patent 3,060,165, filed July 3, 1952, granted October 23, 1962.
- Personal papers of Alsoph H. Corwin, accessed in March-April, 2004.
1 Conant (1893-1978) made many contributions as a scientist, educator, and public servant. He is remembered for his service during World War II as chairman of the US government's National Defense Research Committee. In that role, he helped guide the work of the Manhattan Project and other programs related to nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Early in his professional career, Conant was instrumental in the development of the US Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) during World War I. He commanded the Lewisite production facility operated by the CWS in Willoughby, Ohio, in 1918
Ed. Note: The author, Dr. Benjamin C. Garett is Senior Scientist for WMD, The FBI Laboratory, Quantico, Virginia and is an original contributing ASA Newsletter author with his series "The CW Almanac" (1996 through 1999). Dr. Garrett and SIPRI's John Hart authored the recently published "Historical Dictionary of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare", Volume 33 in the series "Historical Dictionaries of War, Revolution, and Civil Unrest", Scarecrow Press Inc. (Rowman Littlefield), 2007, 259pp., ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-5480-0 and ISBN-10: 0-8108-5484-8.
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