Experiment Eleven (41 page)

176
seventh year in a row
Nobelprize.org, Nomination Database for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1901–1953, accessed at
http://www.nobel prize.org/nobel_prizes/nomination
/.

178
deserved a prize
J. P. Strombeck,” “Betankande Angaende, Selman Abraham Waksman,” Nobel Archives, 1952, Ard. 3:16, AS personal archive.

178
a more difficult task
Einar Hammersten, “Betankande Angaende, Elizabeth Bugie, Karl Folkers, Albert Schatz, Selman Abraham Waksman, och Oscar Wintersteiner,” Nobel Archives, 1952, Ard. III: 4, AS personal archive.

179
“association of steps” taken
H. Boyd Woodruff, deposition,
Schatz v. Waksman
, Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division, Docket C-1261-49, July 12, 1950, 271.

179
“only scientific publications”
Professor Hilding Bergstrand, president of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, told the Swedish media that the award to Dr. Waksman had been made solely on the basis of scientific publications and that his committee had been satisfied with the papers it had received. “I must, however, point out,” said Bergstrand, “that when we pick Nobel Prize winners we do not take into account legal proceedings. We consider exclusively scientific publications concerning the
work of and by prospective candidates.” See “Student fann streptomycinet tillsammans med Waksman” [Student Found Streptomycin Together with Waksman],
Goteborgs Handels-Och Sjofarts-Tidning
, October 25, 1952.

178
to show his data
Corwin Hinshaw to Dr. and Mrs. Howard A. Anderson, September 19, 1989, AS personal archive.

181
as the discoverer
Einar Hammersten, “Betankande Angaende, Elizabeth Bugie, Karl Folkers, Albert Schatz, Selman Abraham Waksman, och Oscar Wintersteiner,” Nobel Archives, August 21, 1952, 10, AS personal archive.

182
citation was specific
George Axelsson, “Waksman Wins Nobel Prize for Streptomycin Discovery,”
New York Times
, October 24, 1952.

183
“immigrant boy”
Selman Waksman,
My Life with the Microbes
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954), 305.

183
“bedlam”
Waksman,
My Life
, 305.

183
New York Times
Axelsson, “Waksman Wins Nobel Prize.”

183
“share in the honor”
“Nobel Prize for Waksman,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, October 26, 1952.

183
“entity as a human being”
Albert Schatz, interview by Milton Wainwright, 1989, MW, February 18, 1989.

184
“amazement”
Elmer Reinthaler to Göran Liljestrand, October 29, 1952, AS, box 5, 6.

184
“rightful share”
Albert Schatz “On the award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1952,” November 1952, MW.

185
“ungrateful, spoiled, immature child”
Albert Sabin to Elmer Reinthaler, November 10, 1952, AS and MW.

185
“junior person”
Maurice Stacey to Elmer Reinthaler, November 24, 1952, AS and MW.

186
“ample justification”
C. B. van Niel to Kurt Stern, November 17, 1952, AS and MW.

186
“disappointed”
William Feldman to Albert Schatz, November 12, 1952, AS personal archive.

186
“distinction is extremely important”
William Feldman to Kurt Stern, November 19, 1952, AS.

187
“generally regretted”
Hilding Bergstrand and Göran Liljestrand to Elmer Reinthaler, November 14, 1952, AS, box 5.

187
“low attempt by little men”
J. C. Hoogerhide to Selman Waksman, November 15, 1942, SAW, box 14, 9.

188
advised strongly against any litigation
Russell Watson to Selman Waksman, November 21, 1952, SAW, box 14, 9.

188
“long-term rational effort”
Stuart Mudd to Göran Liljestrand, November 11, 1952, AS, box 5.

189
“deserves no greater share”
Selman Waksman to Stuart Mudd, November 14, 1952, SAW, box 14, 9.

189
“I have to reject this attack”
Arvid Wallgren to Selman Waksman, November 6, 1952, LOC.

190
“draw your own conclusions”
Selman Waksman to Arvid Wallgren, November 11, 1952, AS, box 5.

190
Wallgren was happy
Arvid Wallgren to Selman Waksman, November 19, 1952, LOC.

190
“self-conscious, tight-lipped”
Newsweek
, science section, December 15, 1952.

191
“dog yapping at the heels”
Russell Watson to Lewis Webster Jones, January 29, 1953, SAW, box 14, 9.

191
“mimosa and a porcupine”
Kurt Stern to Albert Schatz, November 21, 1952, AS, box 5, 2. Dr. Arnold Berliner was the famous editor of the German
Die Naturwissenschaften
, and his struggle to find well-written, clear, and succinct articles by scientists led him to say that a scientific author should be a cross between a mimosa and a porcupine.

192
“By what standards of morality”
Albert Schatz to Gustav VI, December 6, 1952, AS.

192
“ingenious, systematic and successful studies”
Arvid Wallgren, Presentation Speech, Stockholm, December 10, 1952, accessed at
http://www.nobel prize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1952/pres.html
.

192
“10,000 different soil microbes”
Hubert Lechevalier to Byron Waksman, May 26, 1981, HL. The figures were “Waksmanesque.” Douglas Eveleigh, author interviews. 2008, 9, 11.

193
That is different
Hubert Lechevalier to Boyd Woodruff, October 19, 1981. See also R. Bentley and J. W. Bennett, “What Is an Antibiotic? Revisited,”
Advances in Applied Microbiology
52 (2003): 303–31. Toward the end of his life Waksman modified his claim, saying he had been the first to “redefine” the word “antibiotic.” Selman Waksman, letter to the editor, undated, but sent when he was director of the Rutgers Institute of Microbiology (1954–58),
Actinomycetologica
24, no. 2, 2010.

193
“summarized briefly”
Selman Waksman, “Streptomycin: Background, Isolation,
Properties and Utilization,” lecture, Stockholm, December 12, 1952,
www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/... /1952/waksman=lecture
.

193
“commanded me to bring”
C. F. Palmstierna to Albert Schatz, January 5, 1953, AS.

195
“IBM machine”
Dana Thomas, “Broader Spectrum, the Wonder Drugs Are Finding New Uses in Commerce and Industry,”
Barron's
, November 5, 1956, 3.

196
“limitations”
William Feldman and H. Corwin Hinshaw, “Streptomycin: A Valuable Anti-Tuberculosis Agent,”
British Medical Journal
, January 17, 1948, 91.

196
ringing sound
Milton Wainwright,
Miracle Cure
(Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 138.

196
“most serious obstacles”
Feldman and Hinshaw, “Streptomycin.” Also see Davies, “Where Have All,” 287–90.

196
Jörgen Lehmann
Frank Ryan,
Tuberculosis: The Greatest Story Never Told
(Bromsgrove, UK: Swift, 1992), 144–47 and 242–47.

197
isoniazid
Ryan,
Tuberculosis
, 349–50 and 353–63.

198
“damnable disease”
William Feldman to Selman Waksman, October 28, 1949, LOC, box 1.

198
sought exclusive patents
Federal Trade Commission,
Economic Report on Antibiotics Manufacture
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1958), 228.

198
“If you want to lose your shirt”
John McKeen in
Business Week
, March 26, 1950, 26.

198
price had dropped
Business Week
, March 25, 1950, 26.

199
“pretence of invention”
William Kingston, “Antibiotics, Invention and Innovation,”
Research Policy
29 (2000): 697.

200
the five companies
See Christopher Harrison,
The Politics of the International Pricing of Prescription Drugs
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004).

200
one hundred million dollars
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, June 16, 1966, 363 F. 2d 757, 4 line 20.

201
Half a century later
Christopher Scott Harrison,
The Politics of the International Pricing of Prescription Drugs
, 47.

201
more than 50 percent
“Overview of the U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry: The Competitive Status of the U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry,”
National Academy of Sciences
(1983): 7, accessed at
http://www.nap.edu/openbook/030903969/hmtl/7
.

201
more than five thousand
S. T. Williams and J. C. Vickers, “The Ecology of Antibiotic Production,”
Microbial Ecology
12 (1986): 43–52.

201
so-called integrated drug company
Peter Temin, “Technology, Regulation and Market Structure in the Modern Pharmaceutical Industry,”
Bell Journal of Economics
10, no. 2 (1979): 43.

201
advertisement pages
Federal Trade Commission,
Economic Report
, 13.

202
fourth publishing opportunity
Three books written, edited, or supervised, by Waksman had been published to date: Samuel Epstein and Beryl Williams,
Miracles from Microbes: The Road to Streptomycin
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1946); Selman Waksman,
Microbial Antagonisms and Antibiotic Substances
(New York: Commonwealth Fund, 1945 and 1947 eds.); and Selman Waksman, ed.,
Streptomycin: Nature and Practical Applications
(Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1949).

202
“What are you trying to prove”
Russell Watson to Selman Waksman, February 10, 1954, SAW, box 14, 6.

203
“This culture was found”
Selman Waksman,
My Life with the Microbes
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954), 281.

203
“fingers of my hand”
Waksman,
My Life
, 203.

204
“To name only a few”
Waksman,
My Life
, 219.

204
parable of the sick chicken
Selman A. Waksman,
The Conquest of Tuberculosis
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964), 115–18.

205
recorded on world-history Web sites
http://www.historyorb.com
.

205
“He Turned Down Millions”
A. E. Hotchner, “He Turned Down Millions,”
This Week
, May 30, 1954, 11.

206
“unique in the discovery”
George Griffenhagen to Selman Waksman, April 16, 1953, SA, Record Unit 7091, Series 5.

207
“How about notebook pages, etc?”
Selman Waksman to George Griffenhagen, April 17, 1953, SA, Record Unit 7091, series 5.

207
“original notes books”
George Griffenhagen to Selman Waksman, April 20, 1953, SA, Record Unit 7091, series 5.

207
“comprise my various notes”
Selman Waksman to George Griffenhagen, April 23, 1953, SA, Record Unit 7091, series 5.

207
“the most significant notebook”
George Griffenhagen to Selman Waksman, April 28, 1953, SA, Record Unit 7091, series 5.

208
“re-copied these experiments”
Selman Waksman to George Griffenhagen, May 5, 1953, SA, Record Unit 7091, series 5.

208
a four-page summary
Selman Waksman, “Remarks on three of his notebooks containing data on the antagonistic properties of microorganisms and production of antibiotic substances which led to the isolation of streptomycin,” May 1, 1953, SA, Record Unit 7091, series 5.