Die Once Live Twice (35 page)

Frederick was awake and his leg suspended in the device it would occupy for one month. “Doctor Specht, I brought you something.” Jackson brought out a wrapped box. “Open it.”

“Well, will you look at this.” Frederick beamed and held up a new Arvin radio.

“I knew you’d want to hear some good classical music and, let’s face it, lying in bed for a month is just plain boring,” Jackson said. “Suspense Theater will also help the hours pass quicker.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you. It’s just the perfect thing.” For a moment Frederick forgot what he had just been through.

On the third day after the operation, Frederick’s temperature rose significantly and he began to cough, spitting up mucous as he did. Worried, Jackson brought out his stethoscope and heard what he’d feared – the crackling sounds of fluid in the lungs. A chest x-ray confirmed that it was pneumonia. Death’s Captain. Jackson began intravenous sulfa and the vigil against a fatal disease began once again.

Frederick’s fever spiked to 104 degrees and he babbled in confusion, unsure of where he was or who was around him. Helene watched anxiously for some sign of improvement in her husband for the next two days, only to be disappointed. “Jackson, is there anything more we can do?” she asked with anguish in her voice. “If he continues like this...” Her voice trailed off and they looked at each other sadly. They both knew that Frederick Specht was fighting for his life. Jackson was at his wit’s end. Helene begged frantically, “We must do something for him. Jackson, what about your father? He told us about a new drug for infection.”

“Well, the sulfa sure isn’t working.” Then Jackson remembered something his dad had told him the last time they were together. “Okay, okay, I’ll call. I’ll call right now.”

Jackson would not reach Jonathan right away. Jonathan was in the “Dinosaur’s Office,” as he and his colleagues called Simon Flexner’s office. Flexner had stepped down as Chairman of Rockefeller Institute and been succeeded by Doctor Tom Rivers, but he hung on by keeping this office. As a fellow dinosaur, Jonathan would visit Simon whenever he was at the Institute. Their conversation this day was interrupted by a knock on the door. When Flexner hollered, “Come in,” the door opened and in walked Doctor Albert Sabin.

Sabin was a young, ambitious virologist with an interest in the poliomyelitis virus. Jonathan had an affinity for Sabin because both were protégés of William Park, who had then transferred to Rockefeller Institute. Sabin worked for Flexner, and one of their research projects involved spraying zinc sulphate into children’s noses, following Flexner’s theory that the polio virus traveled to their brain via their olfactory nerves. All this accomplished was to ruin the children’s sense of smell. Sabin began to conduct his own studies, as had Jonathan, to prove Flexner’s thesis wrong. Sabin was brilliant but had an irascible personality and offended several at Rockefeller Institute, including Tom Rivers. Sabin had left Rockefeller Institute to head his own laboratory at Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati.

Sabin shook hands with Jonathan and Flexner, and Jonathan asked, “How is Cincinnati?”

“It is not Rockefeller Institute,” Sabin responded. “I would like to come back here.”

“You’re not welcome back here,” Flexner barked. There was tense silence in the room.

“Why won’t you and Tom consider this?”

“Because you’re a son of a bitch.”

“Not because I proved that you wasted forty years of your life because of your stubborn fixation on the poliomyelitis virus entering the body through the nose?”

“You haven’t proved me wrong!”

“Yes I have. I’ve done autopsies on infantile paralysis victims and cultured the virus from their stomachs. It enters by the mouth and travels by blood to the spinal cord!” Sabin’s mouth was contorted and his eyes fixed on Flexner, who would not look at him.

“Jonathan, get this nobody out of my office,” Flexner ordered.

“Come on, Albert,” Jonathan said as he grabbed Sabin by the elbow and ushered him toward the door. In the hallway he said, “Albert, you need to learn to hold your tongue.”

“I suppose, Jonathan. But after all I did for him....”

“Congratulations on your findings. I tried to prove that, too, without success.”

“Yes. You and I discussed the possibilities several times. I know it was your wife’s hypothesis many years ago. Didn’t she have a confrontation about it with Flexner?”

“A small one, yes, at one of our Christmas parties. She told him it was the clean water that got rid of the virus so mothers did not form antibodies to pass to babies in their milk. The timing is right. The first epidemics, though small, were in the 1890s. Clean water in the cities was in place by then.”

“She was right. Infantile paralysis epidemics began only after the water was cleansed to rid it of typhoid and cholera.” Sabin was certain that filth, poverty, and slums did not promote polio. Victims were more often middle-class or wealthy.

“Too bad she cannot hear this.” Jonathan’s eyes looked into the distance.

“I felt smug with being right and Flexner wrong,” Sabin said. “Even though Marion has passed, I thought this too was Marion’s moment.”

“Thank you, Albert.” They shook hands and Jonathan turned to walk to his office.

When Jonathan reached his office, he sat for a while in solitude, looking at the picture of Marion on his desk. Jonathan too felt smug for Marion.
She would have wagged her index finger and exclaimed she had told me so. The smile on her face would have melted a glacier.
Then he noticed there was a note on his desk to call Jackson. As his son explained Frederick’s frightening dilemma over the phone, Jonathan shifted uncomfortably in his worn leather desk chair. Jackson was doing his best to sound matter-of-fact, but the edginess in his voice signaled anxiety bordering on panic. “I remember you telling me about that Yale professor’s wife who was nearly dead from septicemia. She got penicillin and survived. Do you think you could get some for Frederick?”

“I don’t know. There is a limited supply because production is slow. They have treated very few patients.”

“You realize he’s going to die.”

Here we go again,
Jonathan thought. He sighed. “I’ll call Perrin Long and get back to you. You know, I told Frederick to wait to do this surgery until penicillin was proven and available. Now he becomes one of the test subjects. We will learn its curative powers first-hand.”

Perrin Long was the chairman of the committee at the National Research Council, which had to approve any clinical use of penicillin until production increased. Only enough for a few dozen cases had been produced. “Perrin, there is a doctor in Mass General Hospital with end-stage pneumonia. Sulfa has not worked. Is there any penicillin available? Can we include him in the clinical test?”

“Jonathan, Merck is producing a new batch as we speak. The surface tray method of production is time-consuming. But there is one chance. Pfizer has begun production. Do you know someone there you could call to see if they have any on hand? If they do, you can use it.”

“I know Jasper Kane, in charge of production at the Brooklyn plant. We’ve discussed this before. I’ll call him.”

A few hours later, Jonathan reached Jasper Kane and recounted the situation one more time. Jasper believed he could supply some drug, but would need permission. He would return Jonathan’s call.

Jasper drummed his fingers nervously, took a deep breath and picked up the phone. “Hello, it’s Jasper. May I speak to John? Yes, I’ll wait.” More drumming. He picked up a pencil and threw it down. “John. Thanks for taking my call. I know you’re busy. Well, I got a call from Jonathan Sullivan a few minutes ago.” He listened while John McKeen, the president of Pfizer, asked a question. “Sullivan, right. And he knows of a very important surgeon who is dying of pneumonia after an operation.” Jasper listened to McKeen. “Right. You know, we’ve talked to him a lot about penicillin, asked for advice....” “Yes, a surgeon. One of the country’s best, especially for orthopedic trauma. TB too, but...” “Very close friend, yes.” “I’m sure he would.” “Well, right away. He wants to pick up the doses tomorrow.” “Well, the guy’s dying.” “Okay, thanks John.”

When Jonathan and Jasper met the next morning at the Pfizer plant in Brooklyn, Jonathan brought a thermos of coffee and poured Jasper a cup. “I would have brought Glenfiddich, but it seemed a little early.”

“That’s quite all right. The doctor says it’s bad for me anyway.”

“Oh, they’re always saying things like that.” Jonathan looked at the production floor outside Jasper’s office. “How are you going to get production of penicillin to the levels we need, for here and for the war, Jasper?”

“The secret, Jonathan, is a process called deep fermentation. With that we can grow much more mold and produce high volumes of mold juice because we can use tanks as big as two thousand gallons. We have a head start here at Pfizer because I learned how to nurture mold in fermentation tanks making fumaric acid, which is used in the food industry as an acidifying agent. It is a chemical from a mold, just like penicillin is. We’ve already solved the stirring in sterile air using neutral pH for acidity and we can control the temperature.”

“Jasper, it was a lot more fun imagining the penicillin girls turning urns full of mold juice. A two-thousand-gallon tank is boring! But why aren’t you in production full time?”

“McKeen just isn’t convinced yet that the clinical proof is there or that it has commercial value.”

“Humph. Well, we’ll know soon enough. Remind me to send John a thank-you for these doses.”

“Or a bottle of Glenfiddich. Anyway, we know how to produce volume now. Pfizer just has to make a decision how much of their resources they are going to devote to it.”

“If this drug works, Jasper, it will help us win the war. We could save so many troops. But I know everyone needs more proof. I’m still a little skeptical myself. If it saves Frederick though—well, that would be a miracle. He is a dead man by all medical standards.”

“We think the clinical evidence will be there, or not, by the end of this year,” Jasper said. “If it is, we have to make a decision whether to build facilities to produce penicillin.”

“My guess is you will. I should go to catch my plane. My sincere thanks for this. I won’t forget it.”

“Off with you now. Take your penicillin and save Doctor Specht. You have enough for ten days.”

“Thank you so much Jasper. Good luck with your project.”

Jonathan sped off to LaGuardia Airport and boarded Jimmy’s plane for the hour-long trip to Boston. A car and driver waited at the private airport in Boston and sped Jonathan to Mass General.

Outside Frederick’s door, Jonathan saw Helene leaning heavily against the wall. “How’s your husband this morning, Helene?” Jonathan asked as he walked up to a surprised Helene.

“Oh, Jonathan, getting worse I’m afraid,” she struggled to say. “The nurse is in the room with him now.”

Jonathan wrapped his long arm around Helene’s slumping shoulders and together they walked to the bedside. Frederick’s hair was drenched with sweat. Helene looked devastated. “He is sleeping now, but when he’s awake he hallucinates.”

A basin was at his side to collect the bloody mucous he coughed up. “Bloody pus,” Jonathan said out loud, to no one but himself. “How many times have I seen it? Everyone who died with the Great Flu, with consumption, pneumonia. My Marion. Phil was right—bloody pus is the Devil’s blood. I pray to God that I have His answer to the Devil in my hands.”

Jonathan handed the nurse the wooden box etched with the words Pfizer on the tightly clasped lid. “This is a new antibiotic named penicillin. It is to be administered by intravenous drip. Give him a first dose of 400 milligrams and then 100 milligrams every three hours. If he lives, we will continue this for ten days.”

The nurse seemed almost afraid to take the box. “Doctor, we have all heard rumors about penicillin. Is there really a chance this will work? I’ve never seen a patient this sick with pneumonia live,” she said.

“It is the only chance we have. Otherwise, the Captain has a new recruit. Come on, take this and let’s see what happens.”

All afternoon, Helene kept vigil on her husband, waiting for any sign that he was improving. Much of the time all she did was watch his face and listen to his hallucinatory talk. Jackson kept popping in to check on his patient. “Helene, any change in the doctor?”

“None I can see. He is still feverish and confused.”

“I don’t know what to expect. I don’t know when to get worried that it isn’t working.”

“All we can do is wait and pray,” Helene said.

Late in the afternoon Jonathan returned from a nap in his hotel. Helene asked him what she should expect. “What I know, Helene, from what Florey told me about the patients in England, is that a miraculous turnaround occurs by twenty-four hours. If the drug works, Frederick should be awake and alert by tomorrow.”

Helene waited. The hours stretched on before her, and she feared this was how her life would be if Frederick didn’t make it. She wondered what she would say to Sebastian, who was in a fight for his own life in the South Pacific. The summer sun of early September faded into darkness. Helene tried to listen to the soothing sounds of Frederick’s beloved classical music, hoping that somehow he was hearing them. Grateful, now more than ever, for the humming companionship of the teak box, Helene continued to knead the strings of her grandfather’s prayer cloth. She awoke with a start when the table clock interrupted Chopin with its whiny chime marking midnight.

Helene reached for a cool, damp cloth to mop her husband’s feverish brow. Every hour on the hour she had gently stroked a face that had not responded in more than a day. Leaning in to kiss his flushed cheek, Helene nearly fell back in surprise as Fredrick’s eyes flickered open. His mouth worked a bit, and then he said hoarsely, “May I have some water?”

The words were barely audible. Fearing she was having her own sleep-deprived hallucinations, Helene searched his eyes, which were now gazing back at hers steadily. “Frederick? Is that you? Can you hear me?” she said in hushed excitement.