Golden: "Clinicians described the phenomenon as an eerie 'softening' of the cancer, as if the hard carapace of cancer that Galen had so vividly described nearly two thousand years ago had melted away" (90).
I love this kind of transition:
"When Hitchings found Trudy Elion, who would soon become one of the most innovative synthetic chemists of her generation (and a future Nobel laureate), she was working for a food lab in New York, testing the acidity of pickles and the color of egg yolk going into mayonnaise.
Rescued from a life of pickles and mayonnaise, Gertrude Elion leapt into synthetic chemistry" (91).
An interesting concept, the mustard gas thing and a cure coming from poison.
It occurs to me, as we come back to Farber, what a monumental undertaking writing this "biography" is. I mean, that's obvious right, but think about where we have been so far.
In 92 pages, we've been introduced to Mukherjee, acquainted with Carla Reed and we've now read about much of the early history--not just of the disease--but also of the history of medicine in general as it relates to cancer, the history of surgical treatment, radiation treatment, and the development of chemotherapy. That is much to accomplish in 92 pages.
Alliteration: "Flickering and feeble, the leukemia remissions in Boston and New York nevertheless mesmerized Farber"( 93). Let's suppose Farber's name was....wait, let me pick one out of the phone book (yes, I still have a phone book)....I lied, no phone book....
wait, online name generator....http://www.namegenerator.biz/last-name-generator.php....
Hackman...suppose he was Stanley Hackman instead of Stanley Farber, which two words might Mukherjee then choose to begin the sentence quoted above? Instead of "flickering" and "feeble", we might have ___________________ and ____________________.
Golden: "Scientists often study the past as obsessively as historians because few other professions depend so acutely on it. Every experiment is a conversation with a prior experiment, every new theory a refutation of the old" (93).
Also golden: "The suspension of patients inside these iron lungs sybolized the limbolike, paralytic state of polio research" (94).
This is Eddie Cantor who started the March of Dimes. In some of his online photos, he looks like Mr. Bean. A comedian, definitely :) Almost all of his online photos look like this one. I wasn't just choosing this one to be funny :)
His creation of the March of Dimes lead to the provision of fuding that allowed Enders and Sabin and Salk to accomplish their goals.
Again, this work of the campaign will be relevant to us as you determine how to create your own this fall.
Photo:
"Lucy & Eddie Cantor." Lucy & the Stars: Eddie Cantor. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 July 2013.
Mukherjee's characterization on p. 96 makes me like Farber even more: "In contrast, when Koster stopped by Farber's office, he found an excitable, articulate scientist with a larger-than-life vision--a messiah in a box. Farber didn't want a microscope; he had an audacious telescopic plan that captivated Koster."
What are your thoughts about the Jimmy narrative?
I enjoyed the pickles and mayonnaise line as well. Mukherjee's sense of humor definitely lightens the mood when so much of this book focuses on dark and serious subjects.
ReplyDeleteMuch accomplished in 92 pages, and much to remember!
How about this:
Hazy and hanging on by a thread, the leukemia remissions in Boston and New York nevertheless mesmerized Hackman.
Hanging on by a thread isn't really one word though...
I love the picture! It's great to put faces with names, just to visualize the things that Mukherjee is writing about. It makes his writing come to life and take on a physical form.
I LOVE the Jimmy narrative. I found it incredibly funny. The name changing, the radio script... it was great.