Longjumping_Owl5740

Longjumping_Owl5740 t1_je7dknw wrote

You're probably right, the article used as a source for that claim on Wikipedia even goes on to say that claim makes no sense.

>Johnson’s claims about the origins of Terramycin were inaccurate. Ehrlich’s employer didn’t develop Terramycin; a different company, Pfizer, applied for the patent in 1949, after Terramycin was isolated from a soil sample from Terre Haute, Indiana. Ehrlich wasn’t involved. Additionally, companies were racing to find new antibiotics; if Terramycin had in fact been discovered in 1944, there was no reason a company would wait five years to patent it.

15

Longjumping_Owl5740 t1_isesnc6 wrote

I don't know anything about this case in particular, but here's the probable answer.

Legally speaking, he's made the donation "out of the goodness of his heart" expecting nothing in return and they'vr has chosen of their own free will to name the building after him. They aren't technically "obligated" to do so because there's no legally binding agreement. If they changed the name tomorrow, he'd have no recourse to sue or expect his money back. Obviously he gave the money with the understanding that the university agreed to name the building after him, but since they aren't "forced" to do so it still counts as a donation.

Source: I work for a prominent university that handles these sorts of things all the time.

0