30 September 1954

Dr. John T. Edsall

The Biological Laboratories

16 Divinity Avenue

Harvard University

Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

Dear John:

I was interested to see the paper on human hemoglobins, by Scheinberg, Harris, and Spitzer in the last issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. I am, of course somewhat disturbed by the difficulty of reconciliation of the conclusions of these authors and those reached by Schroeder, Kay, and Wells. I hope that something can be done to settle the question - perhaps Dr. Schroeder will be willing to repeat some of the analyses.

The main reason for my writing to you now is that I think that it is unfortunate that Scheinberg, Harris, and Spitzer used an odd nomenclature for the abnormal hemoglobins. During the last couple of years there has been general agreement as to the nomenclature to be used, involving capital letters rather than small letters, and in particular S rather than b for sickle-cell-anemia hemoglobin.

I also want to ask you about the first sentence in the paper. Do you think that the authors know something about the history of sickle-cell-anemia hemoglobin that I do not know; if so, I feel that I should be told about it. So far as I am aware, the statement made in the first sentence had never been made before our first paper, in 1949, was published. I think that a reader of the paper by Scheinberg, Harris, and Spitzer would be given the idea, by the first sentence in their paper, that knowledge of the existence of sickle-cell-anemia-hemoglobin antedated our 1949 paper.

I am looking forward to seeing you in Cambridge next spring, when I come to give the Prather Lectures.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling:W

cc: Dr. Itano