Marie & Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel supported an early theory of radioactivity with observations and refinements that also led to the isolation of radium.  Leaving aside the impact of this on their respective healths - all suffered radiation sickness at various times, with Marie being the most frequently-identified of the three to die from it - their accomplishments famously required enormous obstinacy and persistence. 

Salvarsan, arsphenamine, Paul Ehrlich’s “magic bullet” and arguably the first organic antimicrobial for the treatment of syphilis, was also named “Compound 606”, reflecting an absurdly lengthy series of non-productive trials (not, however, 605 of them). 

Despite the frequent chastisement, “…repeating the same behavior and expecting different results,” the reality is that most important scientific accomplishments are the results of repeating the same experiment or its permutations; and repeating, and repeating, all perhaps not with the expectation of different results but with the hope of different results.  In fact, even while we are amazed at the willingness of our patients to keep doing self-injurious things in the hope of different outcomes, we are actually asking them to do something like that by encouraging serial, repeated efforts to recover.  It is best not to be too dismissive of the value of persistence, even obstinacy, in pursuing an important goal.

- Editor-in-Chief: Dr. William Haning, MD, DFAPA, DFASAM