Medicine: Hope Deferred

Some 25,000 times a day in the nation's stockyards a hog offal operator plunges her hand into the bloody base of a hog's severed head as it travels down the conveyer chain. With deft fingers she gets hold of the pituitary gland. Then, with a pair of tweezers, she removes the front half of the gland and drops it into a container of Dry Ice. That is the first step in the production of ACTH, the new wonder drug which may ultimately save millions from the ravages of arthritis, gout, rheumatic fever and kindred...

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