Dominick A. Labianca and William J. Reeves Brooklyn College of CUNY New York 11201
An Interdisciplinary Approach to Science and Literature
At Brooklyn College's New School of Liberal Arts, the students generally take four courses (Arts, Science, Literature, Social Institutions) each semester in one of five time periods (Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Age of Revolutions, 20th Century). Among the many advantages of this arrangement is that interdisciplinary team teaching is readily facilitated because students taking courses in a narticular time oeriod are shared bv certain facultv members teaching in that period. It is possible, therefore, for students encounterine scientific material in a humanities course to explore such information in more detail in an appropriate science course of the time period in question. This report describes the case of a literature course which concentrates on readings concerned with certain aspects of drug use and a science course which analyzes the problems associated with such drug intake. Drugs and The Science Colloquium The approach used to study the large number of drugs available in our society is to consider significant dmgs according to the major categories to which they belong. For example, depressants, including alcohol, barbiturates, and the various narcotics, stimulants, such as amphetamines, cocaine. nicotine. and caffeine. and ~svchedelics.amone which are marijiana, hashish, 'and several hallucinogens, are considered in detail. An attempt is also ma& to present, wherever possible, the proposed mechanisms by which some of these drugs may operate in humans. Moreover, the phenomenon of drug synergism, which refers to the ability of one drug to enhance the biological activity of another, is given considerable attention because of the dangerous consequences associated with this interacti~n.'.~ Drugs and the Literature Colloquium Literature serves to give the student a perspective concerning the roles drugs play in life. This matter of attaining a perspective is not an easy affair. The cultural envelope of today's college student includes drugs, and it is difficult to make him step back and look a t a specific part of that culture. From the 1960's with the psychedelic goings-on of the Jefferson Airplane, with Mick Jagger's chanting of "Mother's Little Helper" to the 1970's with the drug deaths of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and with Georre Carlin eivine monoloeues on "heads" and drugs, theu student has Gcome i&easingly surrounded with a drug world, if not nearlv a drug cult. How does one begin to move a student to see that world, a world which is so much a part of his culture? Literature, in an interdisciplinary context, offers a glimpse of lives outside the student's self, offers, that is, the opportunity for gaining a perspective. In terms of the actual literature taught, it must be literature which treats the taking of drugs as more than a IF. J. Di Carlo, and Holrnes, L. C., J. CHEM. EDUC., 49, 726
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lHill, John W., "Chemistry for Changing Times," Burgess Publishing Co., Minneapolis, Minn., 1972. p. 211. 3Collins, Wilkie, "The Moonstone." Penguin Rooks h e . , Baltimore, Md., 1969. "The Moonstone" was first published in 1868. 66
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Journal of Chemical Education
casual event. To give the above-mentioned perspective, the selections must be dramatic and must serve to make the student see the consequences of drug intake. Five works from three genres meet these criteria. "The Connection" by Jack Gelher is a play which shows life reduced to waiting, not for Godot, but for the pusher. Tom Wolfe's novel "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" details the LSD life-style, a style which fractures as it goes. The novel gives a history of the exploits of a novelist, Ken Kesey, and his followers, the merry pranksters. In the late 1960's they were the prime movers of the LSD cult. Wolfe examines the various members of the group and records the hehavior resulting from the taking of LSD. In the same vein Carlos Castaneda's "The Teachings of Don Juan" deals with peyote and with the terror and strain connected with the dmg existence. This novel is significant since it presents a drug existence that makes great demands upon the individual. In diary form Castaneda describes his use of peyote and the prices demanded by such usage. Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone" is also relevant because in addition to dealing with drug intake, it illustrates a specific drug phenomenon, namely that of synergistic interaction. Finally, the poem "Cocaine Lil" shows the destructive potential of drugs; it drives home the point that a casual event can slip, all too easily, into an essential requirement for life. In all of these works there is involvement with drugs. The important point is that the involvement is in the context of fiction. Rather than read newspaper clippings of those killed hy drug overdose or examine case histories, literature is used. Clippings and case histories are again part of the student's culture, a part which he can effectively tune out. With this literary approach the student reads works which move him to the point of realization. Completing this realization is the chemistry-oriented science course which serves to detail the specific properties of the various drugs mentioned in the literary works. lnterdisciplinary Analysis of Drug Synergism An ideal choice for demonstrating our interdisciplinary approach is Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone."3 It is a 19th century novel, thus definitely outside the student's frame of reference, and serves to create the opportunity for gaining a perspective. Equally important is that "The Moonstone" deals, unwittingly, with the phenomenon of drug synergism, an interaction which has become increasingly familiar in recent While the student is reading "The Moonstone" in the literature course, he is studying synergistic drug interaction in the science course. The point is made in the latter course that a combination of depressants, for example, can produce a synergistic effect which need not be merely the sum of the effects of the individual drugs involved. A mixture of alcohol and a barbiturate, the two depressants taken simultaneously or separately within a relatively short time interval, can' produce an effect which can be as great as 200 times the effect of the consumption of the harhiturate by itself.2 This information relates directly to the central incident of "The Moonstone." The main character of the novel is Franklin Blake. After a dinner party, Blake consumes some brandy and
water which contains, unknown to him, laudanum, an alcoholic solution of opium. That is, someone has added the laudanum to the brandy and water as a practical joke. The result is that Blake sleepwalks and steals a valuable gem. This action is the main incident of the novel. To solve the mystery associated with the theft, an experiment is conducted one year later. Blake, who has not consumed laudanum during this period, is given a laudanum (taken from the same bottle used in the first sleepwalk episode) and water mixture which contains more laudanum than was used in the initial incident, and he supposedly repeats his prior a ~ t i o n . ~ At this point, team teaching is used; the chemistry instructor indicates that there are some flaws concerned with this event. First, the experimental conditions can be challenged. The obvious inconsistency is that the experiment which supposedly reproduces slake's sleepwalk does not utilize conditions which duplicate those of the first incident. The experiment involv& an increased dosage of laudanum, and furthermore, it is administered in water rather than in a hrandy-water mixture identical in concentration to the mixture used in the first sleepwalk incident. Second, since opium and alcohol are classified as depressants of the central nervous system, a combination of the two drugs could be expected to produce a synergistic interaction. Therefore, although the laudanum itself, either in the initial dosage taken by Blake or in the increased amount used in the experiment, could generate a synergistic effect manifested in Blake's sleepwalking, other possibilities must he considered. The combination of the alcohol in the brandy and the alcohol already contained in the laudanum could have acted synergistically with opium to effect Blake's sleepwalking episode. Another consideration is that only the opium comprising the laudanum accounts for Blake's actions, since opium's effects are known to manifest themselves not only in fantasy but in overt behavior as well.&However. in view of the existence of synergistic drug interaction, 'the alcohol in the brand" would he e x ~ e c t e dto influence Blake in some wav and the fact that no brandy was used in the experimeni would lead one to expect behavior different from that ex4Ref. 13). pp. 472-473,508-509.
Wai, Bingham, "Opium Addiction in Chicago," Patterson Smith Publishing Corp., Montelair, N.J., 1970, p. 20.
hibited by Blake initially. Moreover, since synergistic drug interaction can involve more than a simple additive effect, it is questionable that a mere random increase in the dosage of laudanum would compensate for the absence of brandy. And even if this were the case, the overall outcome would he more of a coincidence with respect to the first sleepwalk and certainly would not he the anticipated result of an experiment conducted in less than scientific fashion. Obviously, control experiments would have to be conducted to determine just how much additional laudanum would he required to produce the same effect as a brandy-laudanum mixture of known concentration, and, of course, one must also consider the possibility that such a mixture produces behavior which cannot be duplicated by laudanum alone. With this information, the literature instructor asks for a reevaluation of the student's analysis of the novel. This new analysis must deal with the fact that "The Moonstone" is a flawed detective novel. Sherlock Holmes or Peter Wimsey would never have overlooked such "elementary" matters as experimental conditions and drug interactions. Conclusion
Here we have shown how "The Moonstone" and the phenomenon of drug synergism can be used effectively to complement one another. The other literary works previously mentioned can be used in a similar fashion to illustrate the interdisciplinary roles of science and literature, with particular reference to the effects of drug intake. The advantage of this interdisciplinary technique is that a student attains a greater depth of understanding of certain scientific information. He observes situations outside himself through the study of literature, situations to which he can apply the scientific knowledge he acquires in the science course. In the literature class the student is made more aware of the details of the literary works. He comes to realize that he must bring to literature not a blank slate hut an inquisitive mind. This is the way that interdisciplinary programs should function-knowledge from one discipline providing students with information that they can use in others.
Volume 52, Number 1, January 1975
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