He wasn't wrong. Professor Frank Longbottom could go on and on for the entire fifty-minute lecture about the importance of stereochemistry or how instable certain compounds would be without resonance. He also did make the very same anecdote about Thalidomide: there were two mirror forms of the compound; one (the "R" form) was therapeutically active and prescribed to pregnant women to help curve morning sickness; the other (the "S" form) was not only ineffective, but caused horrific birth defects. It wasn't until years later, and with the specific research Frank Longbottom oversaw, that it was realized that the two forms of such a drug existed and that the wrong form had been prescribed to many women.