There's a story my mum likes to tell... it's a part of her personal mythology, and she first told it to me when I was very very young.
The first job my mum had after graduating from college the early 1950's was as a lab technician for Parke-Davis in Detroit. She was part of a whole crop of new recruits in the company at the time.
In its day, Parke-Davis was a pharmaceutical company that did drug research based on animal testing. For this particular trial, the lab was to test the efficacy of a possible anti-cancer drug. In a blind study, a number of rabbits were given cancer and then treated using the drug at various dosages and frequencies; the control group of rabbits of course received no treatment at all.
Naturally, says my mum, because they were bunny rabbits, they were picked up and cuddled every day by the new recruits in the lab.
Amazingly, and quite against the usual odds, every single rabbit recovered from cancer, regardless of dosage or frequency, including the rabbits that hadn't been treated at all.
The was test done over again; the rabbits were isolated, and the new recruits were forbidden to touch them. All the rabbits succumbed; and the official conclusion was that the drug trial was a failure.
I asked my mom, wasn't the result of the first experiment worth anything? shouldn't that have told them everything they wanted to know?
She said, no, what was important was the effect of the drug on cancer. The results of that first experiment were thrown out.
* * *
Incidentally, the former Parke-Davis complex has long since been gutted and converted into condos & office space; I think the company itself was bought by Pfizer. For more info, check out The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit and search for Parke-Davis. (SEE the famous Lascaux Cave Paintings of Detroit! SEARCH for the Lost Synagogues! FOLLOW the Detour Signs!)
Posted by edgar at September 26, 2002 05:08 PM