Strong Medicine Read Free Page A

me."
    Andrew rose from the armchair. "Do I understand you, Miss
    11 He couldn't remember her name and, for the first time, felt
    uncomfortable.
    "I didn't expect you to remember." Again the impatience. "I'm Celia de
    Grey."
    "Are you suggesting, Miss de Grey, that I give my patient an unknown,
    experimental drug which has only been tried on animals?"
    "With any drug, there has to be one first human being to use it."
    "If you don't mind," Andrew said, "I prefer not to be the pioneering
    doctor."
    The saleswoman raised an eyebrow skeptically; her voice sharpened. "Not
    even if your patient is dying and there isn't anything else? How is your
    patient, Doctor? The one you told me about."
    "Worse than yesterday." He hesitated. "She's gone into a coma."
    "Then she is dying?"
    "Look," Andrew said, "I know you mean well, Miss de Grey, and I'm sorry
    about the way I spoke when you came in here. But the unfortunate fact is,
    it's too late. Too late to start experimental drugs and, even if I wanted
    to, do you have any idea of all the procedures, protocols, all the rest, we
    would have to go through?"
    "Yes," the saleswoman said; now her eyes were blazing, riveting Andrew, and
    it occurred to him he was beginning to like this forthright, spunky
    girl-woman. She continued, "Yes, I know exactly what procedures and
    protocols are needed. In fact, since I left you yesterday I've done little
    else but find out about them-that, and twist the arm of our director of
    research to let me have a supply of Lotromycin of which, so far, there's
    very little. But I got it-three hours ago at our labs downstate, in Camden,
    and I've driven here without stopping, through this lousy weather."
    Andrew began, "I'm grateful," but the saleswoman shook her head
    impatiently.
    "What's more, Dr. Jordan, all the necessary paperwork is taken care of. To
    use the drug, you would have to get permission from this hospital and the
    next of kin. But that's all."
    He could only stare at her. "I'll be damned!"
    "We're wasting time," Celia de Grey said. She had the attach6
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case open and was pulling out papers. "Please begin by reading this. It's
    a description of Lotromycin prepared for you by Felding-Rotb's research
    department. And this is a memorandum from our medical
    director-instructions on how the drug should be administered."
    Andrew took the two papers, which seemed to be the first of many.
    As he began reading, he was immediately absorbed.
    Almost two hours had gone by.
    "With your patient in extrernis, Andrew, what have we got to lose?" The
    voice on the telephone was Noah Townsend's. Andrew had located the chief
    of medicine at a private dinner party and had described the offer of the
    experimental drug Lotromycin.
    Townsend went on, "You say the husband has already given permission?"
    "Yes, in writing. I got the administrator at home. He came to the
    hospital and had the form typed up. It's signed and witnessed."
    Before the signing, Andrew had talked with John Rowe in the corridor
    outside his wife's room and the young husband reacted eagerly. So
    eagerly, in fact, that Andrew warned him not to build great hopes or
    expect too much. The signature on the form was wavery because of John
    Rowe's shaking band. But it was there, and legal.
    Now Andrew told Noah Townsend, "The administrator is satisfied that the
    other papers sent by Felding-Roth are in order. Apparently it makes it
    easier that the drug didn't cross a state line."
    "You'll be sure to record all those details on the patient's chart."
    "I already have."
    "So all you need is my permission?"
    "For the hospital. Yes."
    "I give it," Dr. Townsend said. "Not that I hold out much hope, Andrew.
    I think your patient's too far gone, but let's give it the old college
    try. Now, do you mind if I go back to a delicious roast pheasant?"
    As Andrew hung up the phone at the nurses' station from where he had been
    calling, he asked, "Is everything ready?"
    The head night nurse, an elderly R.N. who worked