continued-------
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mellanby,
I am writing to you to see if it is possible for you to help me out
of what has become a somewhat intolerable position ------
It has long been a source of irritation to us all here to witness the
unscrupulous campaign carried on from St. Mary's calmly to credit
Fleming with all the work done here --- My policy here has been
never to interview the Press or allow them to get any information
from us even by telephone
---- in contrast, Fleming has been interviewed apparently without
cease, photographed, etc, ------ with the upshot that he is being put
over as ' the discoverer of penicillin'(which is true) with the
implication that he did all the work leading to the discovery of its
chemotherapeutic properties (which is not true) -----
You of course know how dishonest this is and might reply 'why
worry'. This has been our line and would continue to be if it were
not that my colleagues here feel things are going much too far
--- I have always asked people who say ' why don't you do some
-thing?' what should I do. I will not go to in for press publicity
and no-one questions the rightness of that.
The only suggestion which has been made of which I approve
is that the Medical Research Council should issue a statement
putting out the reverent facts of how penicillin was really intro
-duced into medicine--- it is the only body likely to have the
slightest influence on the Mary's propaganda.
I realise I am in great danger of being accused of trying to 'get
something for myself'. This really is not the case and I hope I have
always made it clear how much was due to the workers here.
Nor should anyone suppose that we think we have performed any
great intellectual feats here. All we did was to do some decent
experiments and have the luck to hit on a substance with astonish
-ing properties -----
Yours sincerely,
To this appeal Mellanby replied on 20 June, as follows:
Dear Florey
I was glad to have the conversation with you the other day
about the difficult position in which you and your colleagues
at Oxford find yourselves, owing to the unusual attitude
Fleming has taken up in response to the public acclamation
of penicillin discoveries.
I want to assure you in writing, as I did orally, that I think
the reticence as regards press interviews and the fairness
and even generosity in apportioning credit to Fleming of
all in your laboratory have been excellent and above criticism,
and whether judged from a short term or long term point
of view are, I am convinced, the most desirable.
You need have no doubt whatever in your mind that scientific
men,in this country at last, and doubtless most of them in
other countries, have appraised the situation correctly and
know that, from the point of view of scientific merit, your
work and that of your colleagues stand on a much higher
level than that of Fleming.
I realise how irritating your position must be, if you are at
all affected by what appears in the public press, but you can
be quite certain that this is an ephemeral reaction which
means little or nothing, and the only appreciation which is
worth bothering about is that of your scientific peers.
In time, even the public will realise that in the development
of this story of penicillin, the thing that has mattered most
has been the persistent and highly meritorious work of your
laboratory. The dish you have turned out is so good that
you must swallow the rather nauseating but temporary
publicity ingredient with a smile.
Yours sincerely,
This letter could have brought little comfort to Florey or, in its counsel,
to his Oxford colleagues who had passively to watch Fleming's meteoric
aggrandizement 'with a smile', and to accept the fact that the greater their
own success with penicillin the more honours--scientific and academic---
would be heaped on Fleming.
Mellanby probably was right in some aspects of his letter and certainly
wrong in others. He rightly avoided embroiling the Medical Research
Council in a wrangle about credit ------ Mellanby, in fact, underestimated
the power of the press and the durability of a myth, and overestimated the
influence of leading scientists.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would like to finish the story of the British media and the
discovery of penicillin therapy,especially about Dr. Fleming
and Dr. Florey. At present, the situation about the relationship
between Mass media and medical knowledge or doctors have
been dramatically changed ?
My answer is NO. Mass media still focus in human stories,
but not in facts, or true stories. Basically there is no change
in human nature.
Any questions: write to Keiji Hagiwara, M.D.
Kami-Ube Pediatric Clinic
Keijihagiwara@gmail.com
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