Experiment Eleven

by Peter Pringle

  No doubt, Waksman had the contacts at Merck to arrange a fellowship at the company or another academic post, but he never actually came up with anything. Perhaps the problem was what Schatz might learn from Merck about the work of its researchers in his antibiotics project, or, worse from Waksman’s position, what Schatz might tell Merck about the discovery of streptomycin. At any rate, he instead steered Schatz to a job at the Sloan-Kettering Institute, in New York City, where Waksman was a director. Schatz would now be looking for antibiotics that would destroy cancer cells. The task had a dreamlike quality about it, seemingly impossible, but the pay was good: five thousand dollars a year—almost twice what he was getting in Albany. And Sloan-Kettering provided housing in Manhattan.

  Before leaving Albany, Schatz was invited, as a result of his employment in Albany, by the New York Association of Public Health to give a talk on the history of streptomycin. It was his first chance to publicly put forward his view of the discovery, and he used the opportunity to construct a markedly different version from Waksman’s claims of a long-term, systematic search among tens of thousands of cultures. Instead, Schatz modestly acknowledged how fortunate he had been in finding a new antibiotic so quickly. And he was very careful to avoid using the first person, so that his five-page report always referred to the laboratory effort, not just his.

  “Nothing in science begins de novo,” and this was “particularly true in the recently developed field of antibiotics,” Schatz began. Even the term “antibiosis,” he noted pointedly, was introduced in 1889 by Paul Vuillemin, to designate an antagonistic state of living organisms. “Consequently, the discovery of streptomycin involved nothing new in principle.” Schatz had selected his cultures almost entirely at random—“simply because they appealed to the speaker.” This was a direct attack on Waksman’s claim that Schatz would never have found streptomycin if he had not followed methods already in place for the earlier antibiotics. Schatz insisted that his own work had illustrated the “fortuitous nature” of antibiotic searches. “It has been frequently pointed out that penicillin was discovered as the result of an accidental observation, whereas other antibiotics, such as streptomycin, resulted from organized research with specific objectives. Such an attempted differentiation appears more philosophical than practical,” he wrote. “The differentiation which is of importance is that penicillin, discovered in 1929, had to wait almost ten years for the interest of the medical world, whereas in 1943 an interest was awaiting streptomycin—Merck.”

  At the time, Waksman saw only an abstract of the paper and again had no comment. But Schatz, despite his civility and deference in his letters to Waksman, was increasingly aware that something was deeply wrong in their relationship. The row over the patent had left him with more than a bitter taste. He could not avoid the feeling that he had been tricked in some way that he did not know or understand. Uncle Joe encouraged him to keep up his anonymous attacks in the media on Waksman’s claim to be the discoverer, but Schatz wanted more than that: He wanted to find out why Waksman had flared up when he had hesitated to sign the patent documents. The five-page paper he had just written, he realized, had been a cathartic experience. He had told the truth about the discovery as he knew it. What was Waksman concealing? Schatz did not relish a confrontation, but he felt that his curiosity might soon get the better of him.

  12 • The Five-Hundred-Dollar Check

  BY 1947, THE AGE OF ANTIBIOTICS, like the big band era, was in full swing. Sales of penicillin and streptomycin were booming, but with penicillin production still four times that of streptomycin. The world’s largest penicillin maker, Chas. Pfizer & Co. of Brooklyn, New York, had posted a ten-million-dollar profit on 1946 sales of about forty-three million dollars. At the end of 1946, the U.S. government lifted controls on streptomycin distribution. Under government control three quarters of streptomycin production had gone to the armed forces, the Public Health Service, and the Veterans Administration. Clinical tests had produced positive results in both miliary tuberculosis, where the germs ride the bloodstream and lodge in body organs, and tubercular meningitis, where the germs attack the brain and spinal cord. The other quarter had gone to the National Research Council, which had carried out separate trials on one thousand patients with bacterial infections. The council’s official report concluded that streptomycin could definitely arrest tuberculosis, but it would not necessarily eradicate the disease. It was an almost sure cure for tularemia, urinary tract (kidney and bladder) infections, bloodstream infections, and most cases of peritonitis and lung infections.

  The popular media picked up the report. A February 1947 issue of Life magazine carried a dramatic illustration of a petri dish containing streaks of bacteria which cause TB, typhoid, pneumonia, tularemia, urinary infections, and staphylococcus. When treated with streptomycin “discovered by Dr. Selman A. Waksman of Rutgers University,” all except staphylococcus infections were cured. “Fortunately,” the article noted, staphylococcus infections were cured by penicillin. The media reports were not all positive, however. Streptomycin was expensive, at sixteen dollars a gram, with an average treatment of six to eight weeks. The issue of TB germs building up resistance was also a worry. IS STREPTOMYCIN THE ATOM BOMB IN TB WAR? asked the New York World-Telegram. The article said scientists were studying why streptomycin had proved to be a dud in some tuberculosis cases because of the germs’ buildup of resistance to the drug. In other cases, doctors were still unsure of the right dose. “So many milligrams cured a two-pound guinea pig [but] for a 100-pound man 50 times as much might be the right dose.” In addition, streptomycin was also more difficult to produce than penicillin. The yield per quantity of fluid was much smaller, and about ten times as much streptomycin by weight was required to treat a patient.

  Even so, eleven drug companies, led by Merck and including Pfizer, Squibb, and Eli Lilly, had been licensed by the Rutgers Foundation, a process overseen by Waksman to produce streptomycin. The companies were investing millions in production plants. Merck was the first and by far the largest streptomycin producer from its Elkton, Virginia, plant. At the end of 1947, Merck sent the foundation its first royalty check—2.5 percent of sales. The check was for $344,907, covering all sales, including to U.S. government agencies, from June 1945. Waksman’s 20 percent, minus the foundation’s expenses, came to $53,192—five times his salary.

  At the end of January, Waksman asked Schatz to meet him for coffee and cake at a deli in Manhattan. After some chat about Schatz’s new job at Sloan-Kettering, Waksman pulled out his wallet, took out a check for five hundred dollars, and pushed it across the table to Schatz. It was drawn on Waksman’s personal account at the National Bank of New Jersey.

  Schatz was dumbfounded and refused to accept the check. He didn’t need the money, he told Waksman. He was making five thousand dollars a year at the Sloan-Kettering Institute, which was more than enough to cover his expenses, even living in Manhattan. But Waksman insisted, keeping the check on the table and explaining that the Rutgers Foundation had given him some money and he wanted to share it with Schatz. He regretted that the foundation had not seen fit to reward Schatz directly for his work on streptomycin.

  Embarrassed, Schatz struggled for a way out. If Waksman meant that a share of the streptomycin royalties should be his, then he would rather have it in the form of a fellowship from the foundation, not from Waksman personally. Without giving a reason, Waksman said that it was impossible to recommend him for a fellowship, and he insisted that Schatz accept the check. To avoid further offense, Schatz took it. They parted, and Schatz cashed the check a week later.

  Waksman had caught Schatz at an especially vulnerable moment. Things were not working out at Sloan-Kettering. After three months, Schatz had still been unable to move into his laboratory because it hadn’t been ready, and he had busied himself by taking a biochemistry course at New York University and a scientific Russian course at Columbia. In a letter, he told Waksman that he wanted to like Sloan-Kettering “and profit consider
ably in many ways,” including from the facilities not available in Albany. But somehow it hadn’t happened yet.

  And instead of getting better, things seemed to get worse. He was told he could work on “anything I want to.” He wanted “to work desperately, especially after the year in Albany,” he had the equipment and an assistant, but somehow he couldn’t get started.

  To one of his letters to Waksman, he attached an “Epilogue,” which he titled “Peregrinations of a Young Man’s Fancy.”

  Since taking my degree in 1945, I feel like Tennyson’s Galahad, I have been chasing “wandering fires.” A little phage work [a phage is a virus that infects bacteria], an abortive approach to viruses, and now a fading touch of cancer do not add up to much. Doing nothing does not bother me half so much as learning nothing.

  My having left A. griseus and streptomycin in 1945 was a blunder of the worst kind ... Such things, however, must unfortunately be learned the hard way ... The fact that I am not connected with anything now does not concern me very much ... Getting into the medical field was another [blunder] ... I have not the slightest desire for fame, glory, popular acclamation, or a lot of money. I want to do the work I like and feel good about it “inside of me.” I think you know what I mean better than my feeble attempt to get it down into words.

  Schatz said he wanted to go back to bacteria research and asked Waksman to help him get a place with Dr. C. B. van Niel at the Hopkins Marine Station, attached to Stanford University and located in Pacific Grove, California, near Monterey. Van Niel was a Dutch-born bacteriologist who had made his reputation during the 1930s on the metabolism of many groups of microbes but especially photosynthetic bacteria. By the early 1940s, van Niel’s summer course attracted many more applicants than could be accepted. He was known for his strong preference for the heretical over the conventional and for being an electrifying teacher; his lectures lasted for several hours, holding his students spellbound. Pacific Grove had become the mecca of American microbiology. In teaching and in science, van Niel’s method was the opposite of Waksman’s textbook approach—often Waksman’s own textbook, which he would read aloud in class, with no comment before or after. Van Niel, by contrast, provided advice, inspiration, guidance, and criticism, and he was “not one to use his students or co-workers as helping hands in achieving his own ends.”

  Van Niel’s approach was a perfect fit for Schatz. “That is what I should have done originally after receiving my degree,” he wrote to Waksman. “Since then my pocket and stomach have been full, but my head and heart have become empty. The happiest years of my life were spent when I was an undergraduate student with you. I felt I was doing something and I loved the work. Albany isn’t worth mentioning!! Here [at Sloan-Kettering] I have done nothing since September.”

  He wanted to apply for a fellowship to study under van Niel. If he couldn’t get one, he wanted to go anyway. He and Vivian had saved “close to $1,000.” He was sure they could borrow another thousand or so if necessary. “I’d rather work for nothing in a Department such as van Niel’s than at 10 or even 100 times my salary in a place such as this (unless I have erred considerably in the conclusions I have drawn).”

  Waksman replied immediately, expressing surprise at Schatz’s reactions to Sloan-Kettering but adding that he “could well understand” his feelings and that if Schatz wanted to work with van Neil, he would do “everything I can to help you ... I hope that he will find room for you in his laboratory.” As to the fellowship, he would “be willing to make a special recommendation to the Rutgers Foundation that an exception be made in your favor in order to grant you a post-doctorate fellowship” to work off campus. “Your financial situation will thus be taken care of.” The “important thing” was to gain admission to van Niel’s lab.

  ___________

  MEANWHILE, THE RUTGERS PR Department had been busy burnishing Waksman’s image. It was staging a radio drama of the discovery of streptomycin, starring Hollywood actors, to be aired from the Rutgers campus. The press release referred to “Dr. Selman A. Waksman, Rutgers University’s world famed scientist, whose discovery of the wonder drug, streptomycin, is celebrated in the drama, ‘Winner Takes Life,’ a Cavalcade of America broadcast, sponsored by the Du Pont Company.”

  Waksman was to attend the first airing, on April 14 and 15, and meet the Hungarian-born film star Paul Lukas, who would play him. Lukas had won an Academy Award for his role in the 1943 movie Watch on the Rhine, in which he had played an American working against the Nazis. He was also a charter member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a group that lobbied against communist influence in Hollywood.

  More than twelve thousand people were expected to attend the four performances at the Rutgers University gymnasium. Free tickets were being offered to local companies. Employees at five DuPont plants in New Jersey, together with their families and friends, as well as students and faculty of Rutgers, received tickets. Albert and Vivian Schatz were not invited—even though “Al Schatz” appeared as a character in the show, and he was living in New York City, an hour’s train journey away.

  THE PLAY OPENS toward the end of World War Two, with an army general and Waksman discussing the discovery of streptothricin. It looked “very promising,” Waksman tells the general, but unfortunately it turned out to be toxic. In the next scene, Waksman is talking to “one of his assistants, Al Schatz,” in their laboratory, discussing how to find new antibiotics among the actinomycetes. Together they look at several cultures of Streptomyces, some of which produce antibiotics that “pack a wallop.” In a separate scene, at a military hospital, a young soldier is dying from a bacterial infection and desperate for a new medicine. Back in the laboratory, Waksman and Schatz continue their experiments and find one strain that produces an antibiotic effective against TB. Waksman warns Schatz this is only the beginning, more tests must be carried out. He calls in another “assistant,” Miss Bugie, to work on the problem. Soon they have enough of the new drug for trials on mice. It works. Mice with Salmonella intestinal poisoning recover. They look “frisky as a squirrel,” and the untreated mice die. Waksman names the new drug streptomycin. In the final scene, the sick soldier is given streptomycin and also makes a miraculous recovery.

  IN THE FALL of 1948, Schatz joined van Niel’s lab, but without the Rutgers fellowship that Waksman had indicated he might be able to arrange. In fact, there is no evidence that Waksman ever asked for one. Schatz relied instead on the GI Bill for ex-servicemen, which gave him about one hundred dollars a month. Waksman offered additional support from “our own funds,” if Schatz needed it. Waksman had just received a second personal royalty check for $89,617, making a total of $142,809—more than ten times his salary.

  At the end of August, he sent Schatz another check for $500. Again, Schatz thanked him profusely, but he said that he could accept it only as a loan. With their savings and the GI Bill assistance, “we ought to be able to skimp along.” He appreciated Waksman’s kind offer for the remaining two trimesters, but could not bring himself “to impose further upon your generosity unless my own funds become exhausted.”

  Schatz could not have been happier with his move to the West Coast, where some of the brighter stars of American microbiology worked with Dr. van Niel. He had finally settled on his project: Hydrobacteria, a weird group of microbes that feed on hydrogen instead of carbon or nitrogen, like most of their cousins. Schatz’s task was to isolate these hydrogen eaters and find out how to use them to create water, or moisture, in enclosed environments. He was also upgrading his skills in classes on calculus and physical chemistry and giving himself courses in thermodynamics and theoretical organic chemistry.

  As he had no fellowship, the GI Bill check was his only steady source of income. Vivian was working about fifteen hours a week keeping the laboratory glassware in order, which brought in a little extra. Together they were “in good financial condition” and foresaw “no difficulties for the remainder of the year.” Leaving Sloan-Ke
ttering had been the right thing to do. In spirit, he was as “rich as Croesus.”

  Going after jobs that paid a decent salary had been a mistake, Schatz wrote Waksman. He blamed himself for not listening to his former professor. He recalled that Waksman had once advised him to take a course with van Niel. “The decision was entirely my own and I have only myself to blame.”

  Now he and Vivian were “both fine, physically, financially, mentally and in all other ways.” They were “collaborating on a most important experiment”—their first child, due the following year. Schatz spent all his time in the lab, as he liked to do, obsessed with his new project to the exclusion of all others, including any thought of streptomycin.

  When Waksman sent him a copy of the recently published collected scientific papers on the drug, Schatz replied that he did not have the time, or need, to follow this field as closely as before. “I simply had no idea that so very much had already been published on streptomycin,” he wrote. He was working so hard that he had exhausted the supply of flasks in the lab and “consequently [had] decreed this Sunday a holiday to be enjoyed away from the laboratory.” This was a first since he had arrived at Pacific Grove, a regular day off.

  Schatz did get himself in the local newspaper, however. The Monterey Peninsula Herald’s Round and About columnist, Ritch Lovejoy, went to see him. “Last week,” Lovejoy wrote, “I went over to Hopkins Marine Station to meet Dr. Albert Schatz, 28, jet-black-bearded, short, husky and largely responsible for the discovery of Streptomycin.” It was at Rutgers University, Lovejoy informed his readers, that in “collaboration with Dr S.A. Waksman and Miss Elizabeth Bugie,” Schatz had developed streptomycin. Although he would have liked to tell his readers more of this important discovery, Lovejoy added, the fact that Schatz was “pretty tired of hearing about it led us to drop the subject.”