Lloyd C. Douglas published his book “Green Light” in March 1935. His main character was a young surgeon named Dr. Newell Paige. When Paige’s mentor, Dr. Bruce Endicott, accidently killed a patient during an operation, Paige covered for him and lost his job. He ended up in a shack in Boone, Montana trying to find a vaccine for Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF). The plot included a love story, of course, and also featured an Episcopal priest who advised most of the characters throughout the book. As far as the RMSF subplot was concerned, however, the book didn’t have much to do with reality. For example, as a surgeon, Paige was neither a pathologist, an entomologist, nor a bacteriologist. And the researchers in Douglas’ story worked in secret, pretending to be down-and-out drifters, while the real-life researchers had the support of the town around them.

In the book, when Endicott finally learned that Paige was in Montana researching RMSF, he was horrified and decided to confess that he was the true culprit:

     "’Boone Mountain!’ he [Endicott] was shouting. ‘Boone Mountain! By God!—I won't have him up      there on Boone Mountain! I know all about that shack on Boone Mountain! It has cost the lives of      the three finest bacteriologists in this country—men who deserved a better death than that of a      guinea pig in that damned pest-hole! I won't have him up there, I tell you!’"

While Douglas’s book didn’t have much connection to the reality of RMSF research, he was correct about this: the real people who died doing this research deserved a better death. 

“Green Light” was a best-seller for Lloyd Douglas and was reprinted into the early 1960s. This cover from the 1959 edition featured a beautiful woman superimposed on an image of an operation. No ticks!

When Douglas’ book “Green Light” was published in 1935, U.S. Public Health Service leaders must have greeted it as a lucky coincidence. They were beginning a public relations campaign focusing on the National Institute of Health (NIH—then singular). They wished to secure funding during the Depression to move the NIH from a small campus in the heart of Washington, D.C. to a spacious campus in Bethesda, Maryland, where state-of-the-art research buildings could be constructed, and the public health mandate of the NIH could be expanded. The public relations campaign focused heavily on newspapers.

Lucy Salamanca of the Washington Star greatly aided the campaign with her series “The G-Men of Science”. “G-men” was slang in the 1930s for the FBI agents who were combating organized crime and bank robbers. Salamanca borrowed the term to describe the heroics of NIH scientists. The 12-part series focused on diseases such as typhus, malaria, tularemia, encephalitis, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Her article “Tick is Conquered: Scientific G-Men Perfect Vaccine Against Rocky Mountain Scourge After Six Experimenters Lose Lives” is mostly accurate, although it does rely on sensational language about the NIH’s “magic brews” to engage the reader. One can imagine that her description might also have embarrassed Dr. Roscoe Spencer:

         “With the modesty of his kind, Dr. Spencer today shrugs away the drama of what he and his little          band band of helpers accomplished in the small school house in Montana where they had set up their          laboratory. But those who know him declare his successful vaccine against the fever of the          Northwest is only the first of the victories against disease that we may be able to chalk up to the          credit of this G-man of science in years to come, for he is still in early middle age, and perennially          active active in the war against disease.”

        (Quote: “Tick is Conquered,” Lucy Salamanca, Washington Star, March 28, 1937, page F-4.)

A transcript of the article is available [link to transcript].

For more on NIH during the 1930s, download “70 Acres of Science: The NIH Moves to Bethesda.” (12 MB)

Image: “Tick is Conquered,” Lucy Salamanca, Washington Star, March 28, 1937, page F-4.