Strong Medicine by Arthur Hailey
It was, Celia thought, as if she had suddenly taken an icy shower. And she knew that Quentin was right.
She asked, “So what do you suggest?”
The lawyer shrugged. “For the moment, nothing. For the future, as best you can, be cautious. Don’t put yourself—or Felding-Roth—in any situation where Senator Donahue can do you harm.”
15
“What’s Mrs. Jordan like?” Yvonne asked Martin.
He thought before answering. “Attractive. Strong. Intelligent. Extremely good at her job. Direct and honest, so that when you deal with her, you always know where you stand.”
“I’m already nervous about our meeting.”
He laughed. “No need to be. I predict you’ll like each other.”
It was a Friday evening in July and the two of them were in Martin’s house at Harlow, into which Yvonne had moved completely almost a year before. She abandoned her small apartment because it seemed a needless expense.
In the living room at this moment, books and papers were spread around—a clutter from Yvonne’s studies for “A” level exams, now six months away. A year and a half had passed since, at Martin’s urging, she had taken on the heavy work load which eventually, they hoped, would launch her into veterinary medicine.
The studying had gone well. Yvonne, loving what she was doing, had never been happier. Her joy pervaded the household and was shared by Martin. As well as continuing to work at the Felding-Roth Research Institute by day, she was having outside tutoring during some evenings and weekends. Martin—as he had promised—helped Yvonne, supplementing her learning with his practical experience.
Another reason for pleasure was progress at the institute. Since the devastating “animal-rights” raid, the reassembly of data had gone far faster than expected. Now, not only was all of it recovered, but development of Peptide 7 had advanced to the point of being ready for a management product review.
Celia, along with several others from New Jersey, would arrive at Harlow for that purpose on Wednesday of the next week.
At this moment, however, thoughts of Celia were a digression. Martin continued to frown, as he had for several minutes, over a textbook—Murray’s Principles of Organic Chemistry.
“They’ve rewritten this since I studied it for my degree. Some of the new stuff is unrealistic. You’ll learn it, then ignore it afterward.”
Yvonne asked, “You’re talking about those systematic chemical names?”
“Of course.”
The Geneva system for chemicals had been devised by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, abbreviated to IUPAC and pronounced “U-pak.” The idea was that the name of any chemical compound should also indicate its structure. Thus, iso-octane became 2,2,4-trimethylpentane, acetic acid—common vinegar—was ethanoic acid, and ordinary glycerin, propane-1,2,3-triol. Unfortunately, chemists who were supposed to use the IUPAC names seldom did, though examiners required them. Thus Yvonne was learning the new names for the exams, the old for future lab work.
She asked, “Don’t you use IUPAC names in the lab?”
“Not often. Most of us can’t remember them; also they’re unwieldy. Anyway, let me test you on both.”
“Go ahead.”
Successively, Martin called off twenty chemicals, sometimes using the old name, with others the newer code. Each time, without hesitating, Yvonne recited the alternate.
Martin closed the book, shaking his head. “That memory of yours still amazes me. I wish I had one like it.”
“Is my memory why you won’t let me take Peptide 7?”
“That’s part of it. Mostly, though, I don’t want you running any risks.”
A month ago, Martin had posted a notice at the institute. It was headed: Volunteers Wanted.
The notice requested that any staffers who were willing to have Peptide 7 injected into them, for the first series of tests on healthy humans, should sign their names below. The objectives and potential risk were carefully spelled out. Before posting the notice, Martin signed himself.
Rao Sastri signed immediately after. Within a few days there were fourteen more signatures, including Yvonne’s.
From the final list, Martin chose a total of ten volunteers. Yvonne was not among them. When she inquired about her omission, he put her off with, “Perhaps later. Not yet.”
The purpose of the early human testing was not to study positive results from Peptide 7, but to look for any harmful side effects. As Martin explained to Celia by telephone at the time, “We’re allowed to do this kind of testing in Britain on our own, though in America you’d need approval from the FDA.”
So far, after twenty days’ monitoring of the volunteers, who continued to receive daily doses of Peptide 7, there had been no visible side effects whatever. Martin was delighted, though knowing that much more human testing needed to be done.
Yvonne sighed, “I’d like to have some Peptide 7 soon. It’s probably the only way I’ll ever take my extra weight off. By the way, I bought us kippers for tomorrow.”
Martin beamed and told her, “You’re an angel.” Kippers were his favorite breakfast on weekends, when he could take time to enjoy them.
His voice became more serious. “I’m going to see my mother tomorrow. I talked to my father today and he told me the doctors say she hasn’t long.”
While the deterioration of Martin’s mother had been slow, the progression of her Alzheimer’s disease had been relentless. A few months earlier, Martin had had her moved into a Cambridge nursing home where she now floated dimly on the outer edge of life. Martin’s father continued to live in a small but pleasant flat that Martin had rented for his parents soon after joining Felding-Roth.
“I’m sorry.” Yvonne reached out, touching his hand in sympathy. “Yes, I’ll come. If you don’t mind my studying in the car.”
They arranged to leave immediately after breakfast. Martin wanted to stop at his office, briefly, on the way.
Next morning at the institute, while Martin glanced through mail and read a computer printout from the day before, Yvonne wandered into the animal room. He found her there later.
She had paused in front of a cage containing several rats and Martin heard her exclaim, “You horny old devil!”
He asked, amused, “Who is?”
Yvonne turned, then pointed to the cage. “This bunch are some of the horniest little beasts I’ve ever seen. Just lately, they can’t seem to get enough of each other. They’d sooner have sex than eat.”
While Martin watched, the rat over whom Yvonne had exclaimed continued copulating with a submissive female, while another pair in an adjoining cage amused themselves likewise.
He glanced at typed descriptions on both cages. All the rats, he noted, were receiving the most recent, refined batch of Peptide 7.
“You said they were horny ‘just lately.’ What does that mean?”
Yvonne hesitated, then looked sharply at Martin. “I suppose … since they’ve been getting their injections.”
“And they’re not young rats?”
“If they were human, they’d draw old-age pensions.”
He laughed and said, “It’s probably coincidence.” Then he wondered, was it?
As if reading his mind, Yvonne asked, “What will you do?”
“On Monday, I’d like you to check the breeding rate of rats which have had Peptide 7. Let me know if it’s average, or above.”
“I don’t have to wait until Monday. I can tell you now, it’s way above normal. Up to this moment, though, I didn’t connect—”
Martin said sharply, “Don’t connect! Assumptions can lead down false alleys. Just send me what figures you have.”
She said submissively, “All right.”
“After that, set up two new groups of male and female older rats. Keep the groups separate, but let each group cohabit. One group will receive Peptide 7, the other won’t. I want a computerized study of the mating habits of both.”
Yvonne giggled. “A comp
“I suppose not. But it will keep track of litters. We’ll settle for that.”
She nodded, and Martin sensed that her mind was on something else. He asked, “What is it?”
“I was thinking about a funny thing that happened yesterday. While I was buying those kippers. Mickey Yates is one of your volunteers, isn’t he?”
“Yes.” Yates, a lab technician, was the oldest of the Peptide 7 volunteers. He had gone out of his way to be helpful to Martin ever since the incident, several years earlier, involving Celia and the guillotined rat. Being in the testing program was Yates’s latest contribution.
“Well, I saw his wife in the market and she said how good it was that Mickey’s work was making him feel young again.”
“Meaning what?”
“I asked her. So she went red and said nowadays Mickey was feeling so ‘bouncy and energetic’—those were her words—he was keeping her busy in bed.”
“Did she mean just recently?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“And he hadn’t before?”
“According to her, hardly ever.”
“I’m amazed she’d talk about it.”
Yvonne smiled. “You don’t know women very well.”
Martin was thoughtful, then he said, “Let’s get in the car. We’ll talk on the way to Cambridge.”
At first, while driving, they listened to the news on the radio, which was mostly of politics. It was an exciting, optimistic time in Britain. Two months earlier, a general election had brought to power the first woman prime minister in British history. Now, Margaret Thatcher and her government were injecting new enterprise into a nation which had suffered from too little of it since World War II.
At the end of the news, Martin switched off the radio and returned to closer concerns.
“I’m worried,” he said, “and I don’t want any general talk about what we’ve discussed this morning. You’re to keep to yourself what you told me about those rats breeding. Also, don’t tell anyone else about the new study. We have to do it, even though I don’t like the idea, but keep the results locked up until you give them to me. And no more stories about Mickey Yates and his wife.”
“I’ll do all of that,” Yvonne said. “But I don’t understand why you’re worried.”
“Then I’ll tell you. It’s because we’ve produced a drug which I hope will be significant, be taken seriously, and become an important disease fighter. But if word gets around that it’s some kind of aphrodisiac—as well as inducing weight loss, which may or may not be good after all—it could be the worst thing to happen. It would throw everything we’ve done into disrepute, could make us look as if we reinvented snake oil.”
“I think I understand,” Yvonne said. “And now you’ve explained it, I won’t talk. But it’ll be hard to stop others.”
Martin said grimly, “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
It was midmorning when they reached Cambridge. Martin drove directly to the nursing home where his mother was being cared for. She was in bed, which was where she spent most of her time, having to be lifted out when necessary. She remembered nothing, not even the simplest things, and—as had been the case for many years—gave no flicker of recognition when Martin came close.
His mother, Martin thought as he stood with Yvonne beside him, seemed visibly to be wasting away day by day. Her body was emaciated, cheeks gaunt, hair thinning. Even in the earlier declining years—around the time when Celia had visited the old house in the Kite—some vestige of a younger beauty still remained. But now that, too, was gone.
It was as if the Alzheimer’s, which had eaten away his mother’s brain, was devouring her body too.
“It’s been my dream,” Martin said softly to Yvonne, “to help find something to prevent most, or some, of this. It will be years, of course, before we know if we’ve succeeded. But it’s because our research into aging has been so important that I don’t want anything to cheapen what we’ve found.”
Yvonne said, “I do understand. Especially now.”
On previous occasions when Martin had brought Yvonne to see his mother, Yvonne had taken the older woman’s hands and sat holding them, saying nothing. Though no one could be sure, Martin had had an impression it gave his mother comfort. Today Yvonne did the same thing, but even that thin communication seemed no longer there.
From the nursing home, they drove to see Martin’s father. The flat rented by Martin was northwest of the city, not far from Girton College, and they found Peat-Smith, Senior, in a tiny work area behind the building. The tools of his old trade were spread around, and he was chipping experimentally at a small piece of marble, using a chisel and a mallet.
“I think you know,” Martin said to Yvonne, “that my father used to be a stonemason.”
“Yes. But I didn’t know you were still working at it, Mr. Peat-Smith.”
“Ain’t,” the old man said. “Fingers get too damn stiff. Thought, though, I’d make an ’eadstone for your ma’s grave, son. About the only thing left to do for ’er.” He looked at Martin inquiringly. “Is that all right, seein’ she ain’t dead yet?”
Martin put his arm around his father’s shoulders. “Yes, it is, Dad. Is there anything you need?”
“I need an ’unk of marble. Costs a bit, though.”
“Don’t worry about that. Just order what you want, and get them to send the bill to me.”
When Martin looked at Yvonne, he saw that she was crying.
16
“I agree with you totally about the sex stimulant effect,” Celia told Martin. “If Peptide 7 became thought of as some kind of aphrodisiac, it would fall into disrepute as a serious product.”
“I think the chances are fair that we can keep it to ourselves,” Martin said.
“I’m less sure,” Celia acknowledged, “though I hope you’re right.”
It was the second day of her visit to the Harlow institute, and she was having a private meeting with Martin in his office. Earlier, he had advised her formally, “I can report that we have what appears to be a beneficial medication to retard mental aging and aid acuity, the two things going together. All signs look good.”
It seemed, Celia thought, a long way from the time when, on Sam’s instructions, she had visited Harlow to consider closing the institute, and even longer—it was seven years—since the memorable first meeting at Cambridge between Sam, herself and Martin.
She said, “There doesn’t seem much doubt that you’ve achieved something great.”
They were relaxed and comfortable with each other. If either, from time to time, remembered the intimacies of their night as lovers, it was never mentioned. Clearly that was a moment, an interlude, belonging solely to the past.
While Celia was having her talk with Martin, a half-dozen other executives who had accompanied her from Felding-Roth headquarters were having separate, specialized discussions about the future of Peptide 7. These covered a range of subjects—manufacturing, quality control, materials and sources, costs, packaging, product management—all facets of what would become a master plan determining how the drug would be introduced and marketed worldwide. Rao Sastri, Nigel Bentley, and other Harlow staff were responding to questions from the U.S. team.
Although more than a year of clinical trials still lay ahead and, after that, approval for Peptide 7’s use had to be obtained from governments, many decisions about the future had to be made now. A major one was the extent of Felding-Roth’s investment in a new manufacturing plant, which would be either a costly, unprofitable gamble or a shrewd, successful act of faith.
The way in which the drug would be ingested by those who used it was also important.
Martin told Celia, “We’ve researched this exhaustively, and recommend delivery by nasal spray. This is the modern, coming system. There’ll be more and more medicines taken that way in future.”
“Yes, I know. It’s being talked about for insulin. Anyway, I’m thank
As both knew, it was a pharmaceutical fact of life that any drug delivered by injection never sold as well as one which could be taken easily by patients at home.
“To be used as a nasal spray,” Martin explained, “Peptide 7 will be in an inert saline solution mixed with a detergent. The detergent assures the best absorption rate.”
Several detergents had been experimented with, he disclosed. The best nontoxic one, creating no irritation of nasal membranes, had been found to be a new Felding-Roth product recently available in the United States.
Celia was delighted. “You mean we can keep it all in-house?”
“Exactly.” Martin smiled. “I thought you’d be pleased.”
A normal dosage, he continued, would be twice daily. Two medical doctors, recently added to the Harlow staff, would coordinate clinical trials in Britain, beginning at once. “We shall concentrate on the age ranges of forty to sixty, though in special circumstances that can be varied either way. We’ll also try the drug on patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. It will not reverse the disease—there’s no hope of doing that—but may retard it.”
Celia, in turn, reported plans for North American testing. “We want to begin as soon as possible. Because of preliminaries and the need for FDA permission, we’ll be a little behind you. But not much.”
They continued with their hopeful, exciting plans.
Out of the Harlow talks came a conclusion that a small plastic bottle with a push top would be the best container for Peptide 7. A suitable dose could result from the throw of a finger pump.
Such a container system opened up possibilities for attractive, interesting packaging.
It seemed likely that Felding-Roth would not manufacture the containers, but would contract them out to a specialist supplier. A decision, though, would be made in New Jersey.