14. Doctor of Armenian origin developed the use of Sodium Cromoglycate as a remedy for Asthma by performing experiments on himself.
The discovery of cortisone in 1949 provided the first effective drug treatment of the inflammatory processes underlying asthma. This benefit came with the risk of side effects so serious that doctors were often reluctant to use them. A safe nonsteroidal drug was urgently needed. Fifteen years later, Dr. Roger Altounyan discovered that the medical research department was seeking a better bronchodilator by means of molecular modification of the Middle Eastern drug khellin, which was known to relax smooth muscle. Some of the new compounds protected guinea pigs from fatal bronchoconstriction induced either by inhalation of histamine or methacholine or by inhalation of an aerosol of egg albumin in sensitized animals.
However, Altounyan noted that prior inhalation of one compound partially protected antigen-challenged guinea pigs, even though it had no bronchodilator properties. The significance of this observation had been overlooked until Altounyan saw that this unique property had the potential of being a preventive treatment for allergic asthma. He knew that human asthma and bronchospasm induced in guinea pigs had different features and was convinced that the experimental compounds needed to be tested in human asthma. He therefore persuaded the chemists to give him some to try on asthma that he would induce in himself.