1943

On December 2, German bombing of Bari Harbor (eastern Italy) destroys 14 of 30 Allied ships, including U.S. Liberty (transport) ship John Harvey, which carried 2000 100-pound bombs filled with mustard gas (sulfur mustard and derivative nitrogen mustards) and took a direct hit. One-hundred tons of liquid mustard gas was released into harbor, where it mixed with fuel oil that floated a foot thick on the surface. The mustard gas poisoned hundreds of sailors and about 1000 Italian civilians. Investigation of injured and killed sailors thrown into Harbor  preliminary medical report of Steward Alexander suggested that toxic effects of mustard gas might be useful in treatment of certain types of cancer, since destruction of white blood cells (along with destruction of bone marrow and lymphatic system) suggested a systemic effect (R. Singh, et al.; S. Smith, II, loc 2192ff; Devita & Chu, 8043-8044)  findings shared with medical researchers at Yale (where Goodman & Gilman tried nitrogen mustard injections with “J.D.” and five other terminal patients in summer of 1942). Goodman & Gilman then conducted nitrogen mustard with mice with transplanted lymphoid tumors and observed marked regression; they shared results with Yale surgeon Gustaf Lindskog, who treated a patient with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma with nitrogen gas and also observed marked regression. Owing to wartime secrecy, his results were only published in 1946. Bari Harbor preliminary report also shared with researchers at Univ. of Chicago and NYC’s Memorial Hospital, where team led by David Karnofsky and Cornelius Rhodes (who also had access to Alexander’s preliminary Bari Harbor report) conducted first therapeutic experiments with intravenous injection of mustard agent into veins of 60 cancer patients with lymphomas and leukemia (S. Smith [2]loc 2378-2427)  Controlled study at Yale in 1946  release of Mustargen (mechlorethamine) in 1949. But the drug-induced remission proved brief and incomplete, leading to pessimism about the potential of chemotherapy in the literature of the 1950s (DeVita & Chu, 8043, 8046).