Toward the end of his life in 1953, Soviet leader Joseph distrusted his doctors and got rid of so many of them that there was no one to treat him when he died. But he had a different opinion in 1934, when Stalin heard of Dr. Alexander Bogomolets and his “anti-reticular cytotoxic serum.” Bogomolets had extrapolated on the discoveries that led to the diphtheria vaccine and further research on serum produced in animals. Bogomolets wanted to boost the health of a body's connective tissue, which he believed was the secret to a longer life. Stalin gave Bogomolets his own institution to produce the serum called ACS, and then received doses of it.
The recipe for ACS was pretty gruesome. It required cells from healthy young humans, and getting volunteers to donate bone marrow was a problem, so the process begins with "three corpses from healthy young men accidentally killed in within the previous 12 hours." It is up to the reader to wonder if Stalin helped with this part. The rest of the instructions sound like something from a witches book of magic spells, but there is some science involved. Read about Alexander Bogomolets and his quest for a longevity serum at the Montreal Gazette. -via Real Clear Science
(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
