The world's first ever penicillin shots , October 16th 1940 (the first ever day of American peacetime draft registration),actually did little medically for their recipients - except in raising their morale a great deal.
Because those two patients - one black and one Jewish - knew that these penicillin shots were really 'shots across the bow' against an American establishment prepared - nay eager - to use the need to prepare for war as an excuse to roll back recent efforts to provide medical care to all those in need, even if they were unable to pay.
Regrettably, FDR himself led the charge - and would formally give this movement a name a while later when he said 'Doctor New Deal' was being replaced by 'Doctor Win the War' (at all costs).
Dr Dawson, the doctor who fired those penicillin shots across FDR's bow , argued to the contrary with his penicillin shots that we really needed to beat the Nazis by winning the moral war against them - not merely by emulating their practises in an effort to win militarily.
Because let us never forget that the day war was declared, Hitler used the excuse of war necessity to start killing those needing medical help but unable to contribute much to the war effort : the notorious Aktion T4.
America hardly needed to follow Hitler by its own Aktion 4F , in effect "Code-Slowing" its weakest and poorest citizens to an early grave.
In an era when blacks were universally told to give up their seats and go stand in the back of the bus, the fact that the very first patient to ever get a shot of the new miracle drug was not white and upper class but black and working class spoke volumes.
And it shows that the current battle against the right of all Americans to medical care against deadly diseases has ancient - and ugly - roots.
'Nuff said !
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