The Anvil by Ken McClure Read Free Book Online

prepared for that. “Of course.” they smiled. But the more money Cytogerm made the cheaper it would become and the cheaper it became the more accessible it would be. More patients would benefit in the long run. Could I not see my way into making a very preliminary study of the potential of the drug?’
    ‘Is that true about the cost?’ asked Tansy.
    ‘In general yes,’ replied MacLean. ‘When a new drug hits the market all the research and development costs have to be recouped before it starts to make money for the company. Consequently new drugs are usually very expensive.’
    ‘Did you agree?’ asked Tansy.
    ‘In the end I did. I asked for a volunteer at the clinic and Eva Stahl, our theatre sister offered herself. She was a very pleasant, intelligent lady who was approaching middle age with the trepidation that many women feel at that time. She jumped at the chance of losing the sagging skin under her eyes and having her neck rescued from a nno domini and too much sun.
    ‘What happened?’ asked Tansy.
    ‘Four weeks later she could have passed for twenty-five. She was beautiful. Not only did she look good but also her personality changed to match. The fact that she looked good was making her feel good. It was like being reborn.’
    ‘It sounds miraculous.’
    ‘Flushed with success, we admitted six more volunteers. I operated on three, my assistant Kurt Immelman on the others.’
    ‘You could delegate?’ asked Tansy.
    ‘That was one of the great things about the treatment,’ said MacLean. ‘A Boy Scout with a penknife could have done the surgery. It was Cytogerm that performed the miracles.’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘Five of the six were brilliant successes just like the first but the sixth wasn’t.’ MacLean took a sip of his coffee. ‘Her name was Elsa Kaufman. She was thirty-eight and the wife of one of our production managers in Zurich. Two weeks after her operation and before the bandages were removed she began to complain of pain in her face. I didn’t think too much of it at first. Post-surgical pain is quite common but it continued and started to get worse. I didn’t want to disturb the bandages at a crucial stage in tissue repair so I treated her with broad-spectrum antibiotics in the belief that she had picked up an infection. If I’d removed the dressings there and then she might have stood a chance.’
    ‘What was wrong?’ asked Tansy gently.
    ‘A few days later when the pain became unbearable, I took her to theatre and removed the dressings. It was as if … ‘
    ‘As if what?’ prompted Tansy, seeing that MacLean was suffering at the recollection.
    ‘It was as if her face wasn’t there any more,’ he said. ‘It was completely covered with a livid red tumour, a hideous cancer that had eaten her features away. Mercifully she died within a few days when it reached her brain.’
    ‘How awful,’ whispered Tansy. ‘Was it Cytogerm that did it?’
    ‘That was the multi-million dollar question. We took samples from the tumour at autopsy but couldn’t classify it. It was different from any other kind of cancer we’d ever come across before. It grew so fast! In cell culture it grew eight times faster than any other reported cell line.’
    ‘What’s cell culture?’ asked Tansy.
    ‘We can grow cancer cells in test tubes,’ said MacLean.
    Tansy shuddered.
    MacLean returned to the story. ‘The clue to the whole thing was the speed of its growth. We had been using a compound which speeded up the growth of healthy tissue and here we were faced with a fast-growing cancer. There had to be a link and it had to be Cytogerm.’
    ‘Oh no,’ said Tansy.
    ‘I’m afraid so. Cytogerm was awakening dormant cancer cells and turning them into rampant tumours. Many people have moles or other small blemishes on their skin. They can be localised cancers. We think that was the problem with Elsa Kaufman. She had a mole on her upper lip. It must have been a melanoma. Cytogerm triggered it