The re-invention of a military-only antiseptic into "bedside penicillin for all" creates a global beacon of hope for a world at war

the tiny stone the builders rejected

Despite the self-centred claims of physicists, the greatest benefits to humanity have generally been ardently pursued (invented), not accidentally stumbled upon (discovered).

DNA was discovered in 1860s by an Swiss doctor, but for most of us, it was really only discovered 125 years later in the late 1980s.

That was when it began to first be successfully used to solve unsolved criminal cases, when British researcher Alec Jeffries re-invented 'DNA' as a means to definitely identify biological evidence left at the scene of a crime.

Politics as the authoritative "prioritizing" of values

A Canadian (but not Canada) morally defines wartime penicillin

There is a broad academic consensus as to the best way to differentiate political bargaining from economic bargaining.

That consensus says that "prices" are used to come to an informal economic agreement as to the allocating of scarce resources between alternative uses.

But politics authoritatively allocates (rations/triages) scarce resources between alternative uses.

Baby Patricia & Penicillin in Comic Book

In 1944, True Heroes Comic Books featured the inspiring story of Dr Dante Colitti  saving the life of two year old baby Patricia Malone, August 11th 1943, with some penicillin that he, the child's father and the Hearst media empire had wheedled out of a hard-nosed American medical establishment.

This was the event that made penicillin known world wide, virtually over night after 15 years of being ignored.

Colitti's hospital and Dr Dawson's hospital shared the same catchment area for patients, being only a mile apart.

 News of Dawson's cures, that Spring, of a number of women with the incurable disease of SBE  had spread like wildfire among the patients and staff of both hospitals , leading to Colitti trying the stuff on his dying young patient...

Dr Harry Haiselden, "The Black Stork" doctor

About a dozen years ago, I read Professor Martin S Pernick's book, "The Black Stork", which I consider the best single account of the eugenics movement that I have yet found.

This, despite the fact that the book is ostensibly only about a small forgotten footnote to the overall story of Eugenics, which covered a century in time and and had powerful support in all continents.

I read it, as I said, a dozen years ago - before I had 'always on' high speed internet and before Google.

Now when I read, I constantly go to my laptop and onto Google to expand on points of interest.

This week I started re-reading The Black Stork and went to Google after quickly - too quickly ! - looking through the book's pictures and not seeing a single portrait of the subject of the book - Dr Harry Haiselden.

Google seemed to have none of Haiselden either - though his story is on many websites on eugenics, ethics, the disabled, etc .

I thought how hard it was to write a biography of someone long dead, who you never knew, without a lot of good photographs .

It helps you feel that you can see into your subject's soul through their eyes, I suppose.

I was thinking mostly of my own subject, Dr Martin Henry Dawson, but also of Professor Pernick and his subject, Dr Haiselden.

I dashed off a quick email to Dr Pernick on this point and settled in to re-read the book.

It is foolish to dash anything off - and these days emails leave no chance to correct things between writing them and popping them in a mail slot a day later, as old fashioned paper letters allowed.

Of course, in a half hour I had remembered enough of Haiselden's story to realize that he had played himself in his famous film , The Black Stork, cast as Dr Dickey, ( a name from his mother's side of the family).

He was unnaturally attached to his mom and hated his dad .... and possibly hated having to carry his dad's name as well.

So we actually had a dozen photographs of Haiselden -- as poor quality movie frames - in the book and on Google - just not labelled as such.

Just now, glancing through the book's photos more slowly, I realized I had made a further mess of it .

The famous newspaper 'two head' photo of the mother (Anna Bollinger) of Haiselden's first 'victim', did not include her spouse as the other person in the picture, as I had assumed.

Instead, it was her doctor - Haiselden.

I had glanced through the centre photos in the book far too quickly, before settling in to read Pernick's sophisticated arguments.

But I think I made an interesting mistake.

Conventionally, such a 'two head photo' in such a story would be of the two parents, with the doctor in a separate shot - perhaps with his patient.

I am thinking of the pictures of Baby Patricia with her two parents, filling newspaper pages all over America, in August and September 1943 and again in 1944.

In the case of the Bollinger baby being 'encouraged' to die at birth by Dr Haiselden, mom and doctor seem to be the only two people worth photographing, in the eyes of The Chicago Daily Tribune editors.

Clearly we might think that in 1915, society regarded the fate of children severely handicapped at birth as a matter for the mother mostly - with neither her spouse, family or priest/minister to help her make her decision - that was for a scientist cum doctor.

But this editorial decision on the part of the Chicago Daily Tribune may have simply reflected their industry's efforts to cement daily newspaper reading among women, the major buyer of the goods advertised in daily papers.

"Women's Pages" and Sob Sister stories were very much part of this effort - and we might so view this unusual decision to leave the dad out of the photo, in this light.

My point is we just don't know, from a position ninety five years later - either or both position are tenable.

So, at the top of this blog entry is a cropped photo of the very good looking (but never married) , bundle of contradictions, Dr Haiselden.

Then below, the original full photo of him along with Anna Bollinger....

I'm off to eat crow and apologize to Dr Pernick !

@ArcadianRecord

Janus Manhattan

It is no longer the world's biggest city
but it is still the world's most important
city.

The most power-filled city on Earth but

the most hope-filled city as well.

Home to Wall Street and Ellis Island.

Organizational birthplace of Eugenics and

home to more Jews than any other city on the planet.

The world's biggest life-ender was birthed here, as was the world's smallest (and best) lifesaver -- at the exact same time in history, in the same small neighbourhood.

The little boy and baby patricia both were born here.

Epicenter of an inhumanly endless megalopolis stretching from Portland Maine to Richmond Virginia, it is also home to hundreds of tiny ,distinctive, fiercely independent neighbourhoods.

Janus Manhattan.

The rest of the world is forced to function as any illiterate must, to become very very good at reading the face of this inscrutable giant, because the continued existence of our planet might depend on our skill at reading it correctly.