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David Suchet

Hair Soup

Aired 2 Okt 1992 00:10 - 00:40, Yorkshire Television

 

 

30 minutes drama documentary produced by Swallow Productions

 

The documentary features episodes from the life of Dr. Roger Altounyan. Being an asthmatic, Altounyan used himself as a human guinea pig to find a drug that could prevent asthma attacks. He tested some 700 chemical compounds over an 8-year period, before he found one that worked, sodium cromoglycate, in 1963. His approach was to inhale a compound and then expose himself to guinea pig hair, to which he was allergic.
 
Sodium cromoglycate, which turned out to be anti-inflammatoric, later became one of a few other compounds in the drug Intal, developed by Fisons Pharmaceuticals in 1965 for use as an inhaled drug. 20 years later Altounyan invented  the spinhaler, a prototype for contemporary inhalers, nebulizers, vaporizers, and atomizers.
 
 
Cast
 
Barbara Altounyan (Roger Altounyan’s daughter)..... Narrator

David Suchet..... Dr. Roger Altounyan

David Harries..... ?

Adam Bareham..... ?

Marlene Sidaway..... ?

Karl Johnson..... ?