1940s medical reformers' views on Indie PEN ("crude" penicillin) : 'about as safe as mother's milk ---- and equally unfashionable'

The aesthetic objections to live-saving Indie PEN

The medical reformers controlling the (glacial) pace of the mass introduction of penicillin (from 1928 to 1944) viewed the idea of saving the lives of dying patients with crude (Indie PEN) penicillin with the same sort of distaste they held towards mothers who still breastfed.

They all wanted penicillin that was first of all was pure and stable.

Some further wanted to wait until it was chemically synthesized (patentable) and many others wanted to keep it secret and limit it only for Allied wounded soldiers while the war raged.

And if countless patients died needlessly while they polished the turd - so be it .

Wartime Penicillin, told as sharp clash of vivid personalities and philosophies -- not as a dry scientific treatise or as cheerleading fantasy of selfless wartime cooperation

If you have never read a book about the exciting saga of wartime penicillin that is hardly because of a lack of choice.

Dozens and dozens of authors have written well researched (and well regarded) renderings of the dramatic story, even if we discount the mass of uniformly dreadful books directed at children.

But despite a potential reading audience  that since 1944 that must number in the billions, none of these books can be said to be a national - let alone international - best seller.

Even more unexpectedly, there has never been any Hollywood movie about the wartime penicillin saga, let alone any successful one.

All these penicillin books to date suffer from one honest, sincere but erroneous assumption.

Indie Pen versus Trolling for Grants

Trolling for Grants

Would Nobel Prize winner Sir Howard Florey have ever even gotten involved with penicillin if he hadn't first won grants to do so from the UK's  MRC and America's Rockefeller Foundation along with a book contract on the subject from Oxford University Press ?

It wasn't just their promise of money either - Florey was the type that never ventured forth unless he was assured of the stamp of approval from the powerful - and grants and book contracts from such as these were definitely that.

He was made the chaired professor (director) of a large institution within Oxford University (with a main building about the size of his rival Martin Henry Dawson 's entire alma mater -Dalhousie University - circa 1914).

But no operating budget to speak of to run it.

To keep the lights on , he needed many make work projects to operate within it - what subject areas they covered it didn't really matter to Florey- just as long as they brought in many grants for many years to many busy researchers.

Not too small a project - that gave no certainty that any grant agency would be interested. Too big and too popular  meant too many potential rivals worldwide.

He sought a medium sized but worthy project that someone should really have looked into years before - but no one had.

If he got in early enough and got in big enough, he'd have a head start in so many aspects of the subject that no serious rival would find enough virgin territory to want to stake a rival claim  --- he'd rule that entire important albeit medium sized research area forever.

The study of microbe to microbe offensive and defensive tactics (antibiosis) seemed just such an untapped area - and Florey had indeed guessed right and he was given grants to secure his institution for years to come.

But he himself had no real interest in that area - he was a Sherrington styled old fashioned physiologist , one who experimented on healthy animals to learn about the normal functions of healthy human beings.

He was in no way a microbiologist , clinician or pathologist - he had no interest in curing human disease caused by external microbes.

Only upon the Fall of France did Florey realize that Ernst Chain's project - penicillin - might yield useful materials to heal war wound infection caused by the one big family of bacteria the existing sulfas could not attack - the staph bacteria.

This basic science project of Chain's might yet make Florey a wartime medical hero - and win him anything and everything - even a much desired baronetcy .

His main rival (at least as Florey saw it) was in fact content with his lot in life but burned with the ardour of a medical crusader - he sought to make life better for the weak and the small.

Indie Pen

Dawson sought no grants , sought no prior approval from the powerful.

He was quiet, modest , diffident.

And in his quiet way, also extremely stubborn and brave.

Throughout the race, Dawson was always so far behind as to be almost out of the race.

He was also dying.

It therefore becomes a very exciting story then for me to unfold.

How on earth did this (dying) tortoise managed in the last minutes before D-Day  to suddenly pulled far ahead of his British hare rival  ?

Tortoise and Hare : the race between indies and suits for wartime penicillin

Indie Pen

The Tortoise was 'indie' penicillin , New York City penicillin , Emma Lazarus penicillin - humanized and naturalized. It had none of the innings for nine tenths of the game but pulled way ahead at the end.

The Hare was 'suits' penicillin : weaponized , synthesized , eugenicized , profitably-patentable, 'I am a Republican in a Democratic administration and I am here to help you 'penicillin.

It was supported by  the Anglo-American scientific-medical establishment ,  by Big Pharma and by the British Conservative-dominated government and some all-powerful agencies of the wartime American government.