The custodian of the nation's meager supply of streptomycin was on the hot seat. To Boston's Dr. Chester S. Keefer* it seemed that everyone wanted the powerful new drugforeign nations; Congressmen (for their constituents); distraught fathers & mothers, anxious to try anything that might cure a sick child. Newspapers were featuring swallow-hard stories about babies wasting away for want of streptomycin.
Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Keefer brought doctors up to date on the drug. Said he: "The primary interest. . . is to determine its effectiveness and toxicity...