Penicillin

Yesterday, March 14, would have been my father's 110th birthday.  On this same day in 1942, the first person in the world was treated successfully with penicillin.  The War Department soon made production of the drug a medical priority, in order to have sufficient supplies ready for the Normandy invasion in June, 1944.  Virtually no penicillin was available for civilian use, and then only if other remedies had failed.  At the time, my father was the only doctor in a remote area of western Colorado.  One of his patients, a coal miner, had been injured in a cave-in.  The miner developed meningitis, which my father tried unsuccessfully to treat with sulfa drugs.  With his patient nearing death, my father persuaded the Boston doctor in charge of penicillin production to rush some of the drug to Colorado.  The Boston doctor agreed to do this because the miner's condition appeared to be exactly the right situation in which to test the drug.  The penicillin was flown to Denver, where the civil air patrol arranged to fly it into the mountain town where we lived.  But a snowstorm prevented the flight across the Rockies.  By now the patient was extremely ill.  Meanwhile, the race to get the drug to him became the subject of national news.  With snow forestalling flights, the penicillin was sent by train from Denver to Grand Junction.  Once there, relays of police cars drove it through the storm to Paonia, 70 miles into the mountains.  In just two days, the drug reversed the meningitis and the man was cured.  He lived to 75.  (My Dad lived to 87.)  This was the first ever successful use of penicillin to treat an adult civilian in the U.S.

(Note that this wouldn't have happened without help from the Denver & Rio Grande.)