Episode 1 — The Childish Age of the Sciences

Arteriosclerosis, literally "hardened arteries," was named in 1833 by Jean-Frédéric Lobstein in Strasbourg. He attributed the condition to "perverted nutrition of the vessel wall," though its cause remained undetermined. For the next seven decades, the medical field debated this question extensively without resolution. Arguments arose between Vienna and Berlin regarding whether the disease originated from blood deposits or was intrinsic to the cell. London saw internal disagreements over whether the disease affected a single organ or the entire body. Meanwhile, a line of French investigators, over several decades, developed a distinct theory linking the vessel wall back to Lobstein's initial focus on nutrition, seemingly unaware of the connection.

Episode 1 traces this argument through primary sources—Rokitansky, Virchow, Gull and Sutton, Martin, Huchard, Thoma, Jores—to its conclusion, which was not a discovery but a verdict. In April 1904, a single individual, addressing a congress, delivered a ruling on a question that the available evidence had not yet answered. The field accepted his judgment.