When word got out that two U.S. drug companies had been working simultaneously on the same new drug for tuberculosis (TIME, March 3), it looked as though the arm of coincidence had been fully extended. Last week the arm stretched a bit more: from Spain came word that the identical drug, hydrazide of isonicotinic acid, has been developed there independently. Moreover, to the Spanish doctors must go credit for trying the drug on human patients a full three months before it was used at Staten Island's Sea View Hospital.
It was in Bilbao's Laboratorio Faes that Chemist Juan Socias made the drug...