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on me, and we got in touch with Klein at once. Now, it turned out that Klein had read an article which I had read by a man called Dr. Robert Wilkins of Boston, who was discussing the usefulness of reserpine or rauwulfia drugs on high blood pressure patients and in the article Dr. Wilkins had said that this drug tranquilized people.

Nathan Klein was the research director of Rockland State Hospital. It had 8,000 patients all crowded into too small quarters, and when he read this he said, “I'm going to try some of this around here; we certainly need some of it. We need some tranquilization.” He did this, but the amount he ordered initially was too small to be given. Later by some mistake someone gave a little larger dose and it was shown that he was indeed right, it did tranquilize mental patients, and it and Thorazine have changed the management of mental patients in the whole world, wherever they're given. But there are numbers of other drugs which are given as well now.

This has changed the whole picture of thinking on mental illness.

Mrs. Lasker, at the same time were you interested in the experimentation with insulin and shock treatments?

Well, I was never terribly interested in insulin because I thought it was too complicated a method; it didn't seem to me