Newspapers / The Echo (Pisgah Forest, … / Nov. 1, 1954, edition 1 / Page 12
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Squibb never deviated from this custom. One Christmas Eve, as he occupied himself with some experiment, an assistant accidentally knocked over a bottle of ether near an open flame. Within sec onds the laboratory v^as an inferno. Squibb’s only thought was of the research data which represented his life’s work. Ignoring his own safety, he braved the flames and rescued an armful of precious records. In so doing, his face was horribly burned and one hand had to be am putated. More agonizing than his physical suffering, however, was the deep hurt he felt at the destruc tion of his laboratory. But as he lay slowly con valescing, a letter arrived containing a message of cheer from a group of leading medical men—and a check for $2,100 to help rebuild his laboratory. By the end of 1859, it was in full operation again. Inevitably, the Civil War years boomed his busi ness and Dr. Squibb was under constant pressure to increase production. Sometimes associates un familiar with his high ethics suggested substitutes or short cuts to accomplish this. Once the miller in his laboratory was grinding a supply of costly ergot and found two barrels left over from a previous year. Rather than waste it, he suggested that it be blended with thf fresh supply. Dr. Squibb grimly told the miller to bring the two barrels to the boiler room. There he reached for a shovel and dumped the stuff into a blazing furnace. When Dr. Squibb died in 1900, the Committee on Revision of the U. S. Pharmacopoeia stated: "Pharmacy has lost a Nestor, medicine a leader, and the world the noblest work of God—an hon est man.” For a brief period after Squibb’s death, control of the company was in the hands of his sons, Charles Squibb and Dr. E. H. Squibb. In 1905, recognizing the need for vigorous leadership to build their late father’s one-man enterprise into a worldwide operation, E. R. Squibb & Sons passed the reins to two astute industrialists, Lowell M. Palmer and Theodore Weicker. Palmer and Weicker waged a relentless battle for the passage of pure food laws, cooperated with the AMA and were leaders in the fight for the enactment of the Federal Food and Drug Act in 1906 and its revision in 1938. E. R. Squibb & Sons today employs some 8,500 people and has branches spread across the nation, with plants and affiliates throughout the Free World from Turkey to the Philippine Islands. The annual volume of sales runs upward of $100 mil lion. In 1952, the firm merged with the Mathie- son Chemical Corporation, which in turn recently merged with Olin Industries, Inc. to form Olin Mathieson Chemical Corp. Squibb now operates as a division of the new organization. Serving as president of the Squibb Division is John C. Lep- part. From the original modest five-story building on the East River waterfront, the Brooklyn Labora tories have been enlarged to encompass 13 mod ern structures where most of the refining, purify ing and manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and chemicals is done. Sprawled over 90 acres, the Squibb biochemical pharmaceutical laboratories at New Brunswick, New Jersey, are the arsenal from which flow the company’s new weapons against disease. On a fateful day in October, 1940, Squibb scientists received a tiny vial containing a culture of penicilUum notatum, the first sent from Eng land by Dr. H. W. Florey, one of the early in vestigators of the drug. In this vial were the pro genitors of the countless mold spores responsible for today’s large-scale production of Squibb peni cillin. To obtain a few precious ounces of dry sterile penicillin powder, 10,000 gallons of culture broth must be processed after fermentation by the mold. To meet the almost insatiable demand for this wonderful drug, Squibb built a mammoth peni cillin building on its New Brunswick site. The company’s engineers perfected huge fermentation vats with ingenious rotary agitators to keep the microbes whirling around in the tanks. Before a new discovery by Squibb scientists is released to the public, it must undergo rigid test ing by the Product Development Division to de termine whether it will be safe for human use. The catalyst which translates the discoveries of the laboratories into jars on the druggists’ shelves is a modern shrine of science, the Squibb Institute for Medical Research. This massive structure, also located on the New Brunswick site, functions vir tually as an independent organization, free from hampering restriction. Open to scientists of every race and creed, its research is devoted to four fields —Pharmacology, Microbiology, Organic and Med icinal Chemistry. A veritable microbe-hunter’s Utopia, projects here include work on new products required by the medical profession, improvement of older products and confidential assignments for the armed forces and the National Research Council. Squibb Institute scientists have to keep on top of new developments. Staff members are encour aged to maintain contact with the research centers of hospitals and universities throughout the world. A chemist may work for years on one quest and fail to realize his dream, but his work is not con sidered futile. The Institute has learned that the "useless knowledge” being accumulated today may pave the way for invaluable discoveries tomorrow. Dedicated to human health and happiness, the In stitute stands as a living monument to the tradi tions of Dr. Edward Robinson Squibb, the man who removed the "X” factor from the Rx.
The Echo (Pisgah Forest, N.C.)
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Nov. 1, 1954, edition 1
12
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