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hastened spectacularly by this action.

And it all hinged on...

That one meeting, and the timing of the meeting.

In England in '53 cortisone was not yet available to people suffering with arthritis, but in the United States, the price of ACTH and cortisone had dropped dramatically, and they were essentially available to anyone not indigent. I had to supply a friend who was suffering from arthritis in London, because she couldn't get it in England; I had to send it to her as a gift, in '53.

Well,..

You said that Mr. Lasker had to be persuaded by you to go down...

Yes, he didn't like Washington. It bored him to go there. He felt a great deal of frustration when he worked there, when he tried to get a very important shipping bill through in the '20s, and he really was gun-shy of Washington.

But wasn't he excited by this opportunity to put over something..

He really did it as a favor to me. He said that if he didn't do it, I'd be terribly, terribly distressed and distraught, and it was easier just to go and do it. After he did it, he was rather pleased, but he didn't have imagination in this area