28 May 1963
W.B. Castle, M.D.
Thorndike Memorial Laboratory
Harvard Medical School – Department of Medicine
Boston City Hospital
818 Harrison Avenue
Boston 18, Massachusetts
Dear Bill:
I have not as yet seen any statement in the press along the lines mentioned in
your letter of 22 May to me.
I have a vivid memory of the evening when I first had the idea about abnormal
hemoglobin molecules in relation to sickle-cell anemia. My memory is that you began
discussing the disease after dinner, when the members of the Medical Advisory Committee
were holding meetings in New York. I am sure that I have the date of the meeting in
my diary, but I do not have the diary here. After you had discussed your interest
in this disease, I then told you and the other members of the committee, who were,
I think, all present, about the suggestion that your statements had made to me, to
the effect that the disease might be really a disease of the hemoglobin molecule.
The discussion was essentially as described by me in my Harvey Lecture, delivered
April 29, 1954. One fact that I did not mention in my Harvey Lecture is that I asked
you if you saw any reason why I should not check up on this idea, when I got back
to Pasadena, by comparing the properties of hemoglobin from normal individuals and
from sickle-cell anemia patients, and you said that you didn’t see any reason why
I shouldn’t go ahead.
I do not remember the conversation on the train between Denver and Chicago. Perhaps
it is better for me to say that I do not remember our discussing the matter on that
train, but I do remember discussing the matter of Sherman’s work with you, after the
original discussion, in the New York Hotel.
One reason why I think that original discussion was in New York, and not in Denver,
is that my wife was not present at the dinner where we held the original discussion
and at which, also, Alton Ochsner discussed some of his experiences as a surgeon,
including an operation in
W.B. Castle, M.D.
28 May 1963
Page 2
which he cut an artery and had some trouble in sewing up – perhaps it was the
aorta. My wife was with me in Denver, but was not with me at the time of the New York
meeting of the Medical Research Committee.
With best regards,
Linus Pauling:hpg
