Between September 1940 and April 1945, pioneering penicillin doctor Martin Henry Dawson treated about three dozen patients with subacute bacterial endocarditis (SBE) or acute bacterial endocarditis (ABE).
So out of those three dozen patients , why on earth did I decide to focus on just two - one young man (Charles Aronson) and one young woman (Miss H H) ?
Showing posts with label martin henry dawson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label martin henry dawson. Show all posts
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Saturday, July 5, 2014
"Unfit valour" : They defied Allied & Axis eugenics (and their own physical failings) to bring us "Penicillin-for-All"
What would penicillin look like today if Hitler, Stalin or Churchill had delivered it - instead of Dawson ?
In 1943 , Hitler, Stalin or Anglo-American Big Pharma could have delivered penicillin to us - delivered us penicillin either as expensive as Avastin or only to be given to the truly deserving Proletarian or Aryan.
But against the eugenic-mad world of 1943 , perhaps only a bunch of misfits and unfits could have delivered us inexpensive, abundant ,un-patented, un-encumbered Penicillin-for-All...
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Oct 16 '40 : Dies Mirabilis , marking 75 years of Antibiotics and Draft registration
I might just do an Erik Larson and interweave Jack Kerouac and Martin Henry Dawson's experiences of that Dies Mirabilis, October 16th 1940, together in one book - and not separately as two books ...
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
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.
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.
"Antibiotics, October 16th 1940 : 75 Years Young !"
My first book on "Agape Penicillin" , due out early in 2015 , is all about the brave Scottish Presbyterian doctor (Dawson) who first gave us penicillin the antibiotic.
It is not at all about the Scottish Presbyterian doctor (Fleming) who discovered penicillin --- but then only used it indolently, for twelve wasted years , as an useless antiseptic.
I have entitled it '75 years young' rather than '75 years old' to emphasize that the real miracle of antibiotics has mostly been for in its effects on younger rather than older patients.
It is not at all about the Scottish Presbyterian doctor (Fleming) who discovered penicillin --- but then only used it indolently, for twelve wasted years , as an useless antiseptic.
I have entitled it '75 years young' rather than '75 years old' to emphasize that the real miracle of antibiotics has mostly been for in its effects on younger rather than older patients.
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Aaron Alston , penicillin's first SBE patient but second to get the historical injection
The known published facts are few
And that his name was"Aaron Alston" and that he subsequently "died".
The available record of the amounts and dates that Aaron received Dawson's penicillin - as published by key Dawson team member Dr Gladys L Hobby in her 1985 book on penicillin , Penicillin : Meeting the Challenge , ceases near the end of January 1941.
And that is all the published accounts show.
But now for new research and reasoned suppositions...
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Moral Courage --- this doctor tested on himself first - not on some helpless dying woman ...
First to receive penicillin needle : Henry Dawson, October 15 1940, Columbia Presbyterian medical center, New York
Despite this, Canadian-born (Martin) Henry Dawson wasn't actually a patient.
He was instead the lead investigator of this particular American penicillin research team.
He was merely following an old tradition that says a truly caring doctor doesn't first test a potentially dangerous new therapy upon his patients , but rather upon himself.
It is a tradition that Dawson's main penicillin rival, Australian Howard Florey - entirely in character with his self-serving nature - declined to follow.
Finally ---- a penicillin movie with a genuine hero - a North American hero to boot !
My book series will be the first books - ever - about the dramatic events of wartime penicillin that will feature a North American, Canadian-American Martin Henry Dawson, as its chief protagonist.
And it will thus be the first ever to feature a genuine hero as its chief protagonist.
And it will thus be the first ever to feature a genuine hero as its chief protagonist.
why Henry Dawson rather than Henry Alline
The revisionist's temperament
By my fifth year in school, I found it almost impossible to resist the urge to publicly expose the difference between cherished myth and actual reality, regardless of the negative effect on my already diminished popularity.
This constant urge to revise and to debunk has made me a sort of historian, at least by temperament.
This constant urge to revise and to debunk has made me a sort of historian, at least by temperament.
Thin books or fat journals ? Hard to tell !
For a time I thought my Dawson series of books would come out in parts of a periodical magazine :
Triumph of the NATURAL
"The Mills of Nature" will start up its longer (6000 word) articles with a series that puts together a natural world oriented account of WWII.
If that all sounds very Olympian , rest assured it will be instantly sharply brought down to earth.
That is because the series will be told through the eyes of just a single individual, who himself barely got out of town during all of WWII.
You will read of the wartime experiences of New York City based Dr Martin Henry Dawson.
Dawson was a decorated Canadian WWI hero and the leading DNA and Penicillin pioneer.
But Dawson couldn't re-join the military in WWII ,as he had hoped , because he was slowly dying of an auto immune disease throughout the war.
But even if he had gone overseas he couldn't have told this big a story.
Because oddly enough , no frontline military general or overly-busy national leader ever had as intimate an overview of the entire war as a well connected and media-hungry New Yorker.
New York city was the world's biggest , richest city and its biggest port.
It was thusthe war's biggest transfer point for both cargo and both in and outbound troops (not to mention all the just-passing-though VIPs).
This alone made it home to the war's best informed and most varied gossip.
New York was also a wartime city with the world's most varied and freest media.
But that isn't enough to pick out Dawson.
Many equally well-read among the eight million New Yorkers would also seem qualified to tell this tale.
However, in what turned out to be an unexpectedly long war of attrition, the question of sustaining manpower numbers and morale became the paramount question above all others - on both sides.
And so as it happened, the very contrary minded and penicillin-pioneering Dawson ended up becoming very close to the turning point of this vital issue.
This chance of fate , combined with his unusually wide WWI war experiences and his endless curiosity as a reader and listener makes him a wonderful subject to tell Nature's side of the war through.
Admittedly, it is a risk to use the eyes of a homebound dying man to tell the story of a war spread over all the world.
But few military events of WWII could have had a bigger impact on our own post war world than the penicillin events personally initiated by this hometown-bound and dying doctor.
His story over that six year period will be told in about sixty vignettes , collected into six series parts , all determined by six decisive breaks in Dawson's actual WWII experience.
Major parts' titles and their individual time periods :
I : Discarding the Small : roughly from the Fall of 1939 to the Fall of 1940
II : Exalting the Small : roughly from the Fall of 1940 to the Fall of 1941
III : Betraying the Small : roughly from the Fall of 1941 to the Fall of 1942
IV : Agitating the Small : roughly from the Fall of 1942 to the Fall of 1943
V : Denying the Small : roughly from the Fall of 1943 to the Fall of 1944
VI : Triumph of the Natural : roughly from the Fall of 1944 to the Fall of 1945
If that all sounds very Olympian , rest assured it will be instantly sharply brought down to earth.
That is because the series will be told through the eyes of just a single individual, who himself barely got out of town during all of WWII.
You will read of the wartime experiences of New York City based Dr Martin Henry Dawson.
Dawson was a decorated Canadian WWI hero and the leading DNA and Penicillin pioneer.
But Dawson couldn't re-join the military in WWII ,as he had hoped , because he was slowly dying of an auto immune disease throughout the war.
But even if he had gone overseas he couldn't have told this big a story.
Because oddly enough , no frontline military general or overly-busy national leader ever had as intimate an overview of the entire war as a well connected and media-hungry New Yorker.
New York city was the world's biggest , richest city and its biggest port.
It was thusthe war's biggest transfer point for both cargo and both in and outbound troops (not to mention all the just-passing-though VIPs).
This alone made it home to the war's best informed and most varied gossip.
New York was also a wartime city with the world's most varied and freest media.
But that isn't enough to pick out Dawson.
Many equally well-read among the eight million New Yorkers would also seem qualified to tell this tale.
However, in what turned out to be an unexpectedly long war of attrition, the question of sustaining manpower numbers and morale became the paramount question above all others - on both sides.
And so as it happened, the very contrary minded and penicillin-pioneering Dawson ended up becoming very close to the turning point of this vital issue.
This chance of fate , combined with his unusually wide WWI war experiences and his endless curiosity as a reader and listener makes him a wonderful subject to tell Nature's side of the war through.
Admittedly, it is a risk to use the eyes of a homebound dying man to tell the story of a war spread over all the world.
But few military events of WWII could have had a bigger impact on our own post war world than the penicillin events personally initiated by this hometown-bound and dying doctor.
His story over that six year period will be told in about sixty vignettes , collected into six series parts , all determined by six decisive breaks in Dawson's actual WWII experience.
Major parts' titles and their individual time periods :
I : Discarding the Small : roughly from the Fall of 1939 to the Fall of 1940
II : Exalting the Small : roughly from the Fall of 1940 to the Fall of 1941
III : Betraying the Small : roughly from the Fall of 1941 to the Fall of 1942
IV : Agitating the Small : roughly from the Fall of 1942 to the Fall of 1943
V : Denying the Small : roughly from the Fall of 1943 to the Fall of 1944
VI : Triumph of the Natural : roughly from the Fall of 1944 to the Fall of 1945
the mysterious ways of Martin Henry Dawson ...
God Only Knows why Henry Dawson did what he did - because no one else does ... probably not even himself
Monday, May 26, 2014
Agape Love as "brave compassion"
It is unusually difficult to be compassionate when one is also under attack.
I mean not just when enemy bullets are winging your way but also when your entire society, including all your friends and family around you, is seemingly opposing your compassion.
I mean not just when enemy bullets are winging your way but also when your entire society, including all your friends and family around you, is seemingly opposing your compassion.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Scandal : Writers Union of Canada rejects BLOCKHEAD
Great news !
The Writers' Union of Canada has changed its membership requirements and I am still not allowed in.
For a few weeks there , I feared I might be.
The Writers' Union of Canada has changed its membership requirements and I am still not allowed in.
For a few weeks there , I feared I might be.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
His agape love had no hometown....
(Martin) Henry Dawson was born in Truro but spent his formative years going to school in Halifax and Montreal or saving lives and fighting Huns in World War One France.
He later worked in hospitals in Kentucky and in New York City.
In WWII, he gave up his own life to try and save hundreds of thousands of people - people totally unknown to him and from all over the world - who were dying (needlessly) of subacute bacterial endocarditis (SBE) .
He later worked in hospitals in Kentucky and in New York City.
In WWII, he gave up his own life to try and save hundreds of thousands of people - people totally unknown to him and from all over the world - who were dying (needlessly) of subacute bacterial endocarditis (SBE) .
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