Draft Registration, October 16th 1940 : 75 years Young !

Due out in early 2015 is my book about the origins of America's 75 year old peacetime draft registration process.

It is another in my series of books on "Agape Penicillin".

If my book about the 'Dawning of Antibiotics' on October 16 1940 focuses on the 4Fs among America's youth, this book will focus instead on the 1As among her youth.

But I do not think it is odd or a coincidence that both events share the exact same 75th anniversary, right down to the day.

I believe that Dr Martin Henry Dawson began his antibiotics crusade on that crucial date, October 16th 1940 , as a deliberate and provocative counterpoise.

A counterpoise to 1940s America's undue emphasis on only valuing its children to the extent that they are fit enough to kill other children.

He felt all children - as well as all people - are worthy of the best possible health care simply because they are our fellow human beings.....

* Dawson had the freedom to experiment with penicllin that October day only because the very pro-war President of Columbia university had suspended classes to ensure a perfect registration drive.

After football scholarship undergrad Jack Kerouac dutifully registered that day, he went forth to play his second football game for the university.

He broke his leg and his career in football was over - its loss and literature and the Beats' gain ....

On a day when most other youth got America's first peacetime draft card, Aaron & Charlie got History's first needle of antibiotics : Dies Mirabilis ,October 16 1940

When the possibility of  your nation joining a world wide war looms, getting your first ever draft registration card must feel just like getting the kiss of death, to a young man on the campus of Columbia University.

But when you are a young man on another part of Columbia's campus who has been written off  'as soon to die from an invariably fatal disease', getting instead History's first ever needle of antibiotics, must feel just like getting the kiss of life.

Hence the spooky Janus-like nature of Dies Mirabilis , October 16th 1940.....