Unintended Benefits

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Stumbling into progress. Essay. 800 words. 4-minute read.

Image from IMDB, Lord Cutler Beckett

Unintended Benefits

By Ray Tabler

One might find proof of God in the uncanny luck the human race seems to enjoy. Or, perhaps we make our own luck, through learning from the misfortune of others. Either is a valid argument, and I know better than to try and resolve the existence of God in this essay. My goal is simply to point out a few examples of how disaster, or even inconvenience, led to something beneficial after all.

We’re all familiar with the law of unintended consequences. Basically, when attempting to do one thing, other, unexpected, and surprising, outcomes ensue instead of or in addition to the original desired goal. Often those collateral results are negative in nature. When the British ruled India, they put a bounty on cobra snakes. Which resulted in a flash cottage industry in raising cobras for the reward. Cobra population swelled. Seatbelt laws probably increased the number of car accidents, as well as cyclist and pedestrian deaths. Drivers just feel safer.

But sometimes odds break the other way, and positive dividends fall out with the tragic ones.

In World War 2, German planes bombed a captured Italian harbor, full of allied ships. Over 1,000 British and American soldiers died, but not all from German bombs. A cargo ship anchored in Bari harbor happened to be loaded with mustard gas bombs and artillery shells. The Allies didn’t use chemical warfare in World War 2, but they had stocks of weaponized chemical agent son hand, to respond rapidly should the Axis side do so. Troops in the harbor water from sinking ships absorbed released and dissolved mustard gas through their skin, due to enhanced transmission via fuel oil floating on the surface. Fortunately, a doctor treating the afflicted noticed how the active ingredient of the chemical weapon inhibited white cell growth. After the war, he formulated a safer version of the agent, and used it to treat cancer. That was the start of chemotherapy.

Continuing in the medical vein, penicillin was discovered by Dr. Alexander Flemming. He returned from a vacation to find Petrie dishes of staph bacteria in his lab contaminated with mold. The bacteria wouldn’t grow near the mold. Flemming isolated penicillin from the mold, eventually saving millions of lives.

Not quite as consequential as penicillin, the blood thinner warfarin, Viagra, and Valium were all accidental inventions. A herd of cows in Wisconsin suddenly couldn’t stop bleeding. The cause was found to be moldy hay, from which was separated a substance that inhibits blood clotting. That was Warfarin, named for Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) that funded its development. Surprisingly, Warfarin doubles as a rat poison. Viagra started off as a drug for high blood pressure. Test subjects reported the side effect of being, ahem, “ready to go.” Some drug company marketer noticed. The rest is ED history. Valium was intended to be a fabric dye. It works better for chilling people out.

The microwave oven was born when a radar researcher noticed the candy bar in his pocket melted when he turned on his test rig. No information about what parts of him melted too. As a result, people can now enjoy gas station microwave burritos around the world. The only other chocolate-related accidental discovery of which I am aware involves the street corner collision that birthed the Reese’s peanut butter cup. 😉

Legend has it that tea, as a beverage, began when stray leaves fell from a tree into a pot of boiling water next to an emperor of ancient China. Apparently on a short break from ruling the Middle Kingdom, his majesty was curious, took a sip (once cool enough), and liked the taste.

In 1941, a Swiss engineer returned form a walk in the woods with his dog to find Fido’s fur full of cockleburs. Curious, he examined the cockleburs closely to find the surface covered in tiny hooks, which are perfect for snagging on the fur of passing animals. That structure, recreated in nylon, is what makes Velcro work.

Teflon resulted when a chemist accidentally mixed two gasses, that polymerized into a corrosion resistant solid. Superglue was a chemical a researcher pulled off the shelf years after he first tried to make plastic telescope lenses from it. Another chemist stumbled into the mind-altering effects of LSD when he accidentally absorbed some of a sample through his fingertips. Fortunately, a co-worker was there to take the man home safely. On second thought, maybe LSD doesn’t actually belong on this list of beneficial accidental discoveries.

Finally, the development of online videos we all watch was driven by the porn industry. Steady demand for watching naked people, doing naughty things over the internet bankrolled the commercialization of streaming. Think about that the next time you watch a cute cat video.

So, keep your eyes, and your mind, open. You never know when, where, or how opportunity will come knocking.

END.

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