in particular tuberculosis, the deadliest infectious disease in history. TB
had killed one-seventh of all human beings—roughly fifteen billion
people. The cure that had eluded Robert Koch became the obsession for
Feldman and Hinshaw. The two Mayo researchers communicated with
Waksman after reading his initial 1941 streptothricin paper^20 (which
proved to be an experimental disaster after it was realized that
streptothricin was dangerously toxic to kidneys), hoping to collaborate on
the testing of any future antibiotic discoveries.
Albert Schatz’s discovery of streptomycin is the story of stubborn
dedication and personal subordination. While working in seclusion in a
basement lab in Waksman’s research building at Rutgers, scouring soil
samples for a bacterium that could defeat TB—specifically against the
most dangerous strain that his Mayo colleagues could provide—Schatz
isolated two variants of Streptomycetes griseus. One sample was from a
heavily manured field soil, and the other was swabbed from the throat of a
chicken. Both samples of Streptomycetes griseus were antagonistic to TB
in vitro, but in vivo testing would clarify if streptomycin was an effective
and safe antibiotic.
Feldman and Hinshaw were among the first to receive an advance copy
of Schatz’s and Waksman’s famous 1944 paper trumpeting the arrival of
streptomycin,^21 and by April 1944, the two Mayo researchers began
testing streptomycin in guinea pigs infected with a variety of diseases:
bubonic plague, tularemia, shigellosis, and TB. By late June 1944 it was
obvious that streptomycin was a miracle drug; it was curing every guinea
pig of every disease, including TB. Additional testing was performed in
the following months, and by the fall of 1944, Hinshaw was prepared to
administer the first dose of streptomycin to a human. On November 15,
1944, Patricia Thomas became the first patient to receive the wonder drug.
Severely infected with TB, and with no hope of survival, Patricia received
five courses of streptomycin over the next five months, with dosages
based upon a patchwork of early science and guesswork. Not only did
Patricia Thomas live, she married and had three children, living another
twenty-two years.
To really determine if streptomycin worked as well as was initially
believed, a groundbreaking analysis was needed. While there had been
simple trials comparing diets and primitive drugs (dating all the way back
to the story of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible), including the important 1793