By Henry Ehrlich
Usually when people use the term “missing h” they are referring to drug evidence that has disappeared from the storage room at a police station, as happened in real life in the French Connection case. Or “Mickey Cohen’s missing h” in the movie L.A. Confidential, which disappeared before it was taken into evidence. But there’s a new missing h and this one sits badly with members of my family. A new article about eosinophils in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology, published by the American College of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology identifies the man who discovered these cells as “Paul Erlich.” Paul Ehrlich, namesake of my cousin and co-author, was the founder of the science of immunology. To misspell his name twice in the same article–well, it’s like referring to the man who brought the 10 Commandments down from Mount Sinai as Moes. Or the father of our country as George Wasington. That whirring sound you hear is coming from a cemetery in Long Island where our fathers, uncle, and grandfather are spinning in their graves. Oh well, to err is human, to forgive is (however grudgingly in this particular case) divine. May this be the biggest error the Annals makes this year.