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

of Freireich’s medical fellows in those
years. He held his hands far apart. “And
you have this kid, who is only this big.”
He held his hands much closer together.
“It was like watering a flowerpot with a
fire hose. If you don’t do it right, you put
the kids into heart failure. The clinical
director of NCI at the time was a guy
named Berlin. He saw the [sausage] and
said to Jay, ‘You’re insane.’ He told Jay
he was going to fire him if he kept doing
platelet transfusions.” Freireich ignored
him. “Jay being Jay,” DeVita went on,
“he decided if he couldn’t do it, he
didn’t want to work there anyway.” The
bleeding stopped.