David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

ability to defend itself. Then came the
bleeding.
“Dr. Zubrod came around once a
week to see how we were doing,”
Freireich remembered, “and he said to
me, ‘Freireich, this place is like an
abattoir! There’s blood all over the
goddamn place. We have to clean it up!’
It was true. The kids bled from
everywhere—through their stool, urine
—that’s the worst part. They paint the
ceiling. They bleed from out of their
ears, from their skin. There was blood
on everything. The nurses would come to
work in the morning in their white
uniforms and go home covered in
blood.”
The children would bleed internally,