More of Serendipitous discoveries in Medicine and Surgery.

Pharmacology has a particularly rich history of serendipity. The discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming is the best known example. Similarly, the concept that certain chemicals can be used to cure cancer developed after soldiers exposed to mustard gas in World War II developed reduced numbers of white cells in the blood, leading to the use of the chemically related nitrogen mustard as an anti-leukemic drug. The hallucinogenic properties of LSD unfolded when Albert Hoffmann ingested some accidentally while working to develop a drug to control hemorrhage after childbirth and migraine. Serendipity even has a major role in Arthur Hailey's novel Strong medicine in the discovery of an aphrodisiac. In an example of life imitating art, the ability of the new anti-impotence drug sildenafil (Viagra) was discovered accidentally during a search for a cardiovascular vasodilator.
Examples of serendipity also exist in surgery. Microvascular surgery originated when had to join small blood vessels in a dog during an experiment. Realizing that this required the help of a microscope, he proceeded to use one — but also recognized its potential for surgical practice. Another example of serendipity is the surgical glove, developed by Julius H. Jacobson IIWilliam Halsted to prevent his operation-room nurse (whom he subsequently married) from developing dermatitis due to the mercuric chloride used for asepsis. Halsted asked the Goodyear Rubber Company to fashion thin rubber gloves for her. That post-operative infections decreased following the use of gloves was a later but much more useful offshoot of this invention.