[Some paragraph breaks added for ease of reading]Pearl River, N.Y.,
April 19, 1919.Dear Miss Turner, -
Betty Ritchie wrote me long since that you wanted me to tell you about my work. I have been half-way expecting to get up to College - I had much rather talk than write - but am afraid I shan't be able to get away for a long time yet - therefore this letter.
My work is making and testing pituitary extract. We get the pituitary glands in large quantities from the big slaughter houses in New York and Chicago. The posterior lobes are cut out and trimmed, put thru a fine meat grinder, dried, defatted,
extracted& ground to a powder. Then the active principle is extracted in a weak acid solution, which is then heated to coagulate the proteins, centrifuged, paper-pulped and Berkefelded. Did you ever try to filter through a paper-pulp? It's fun - after you learn how - but I thot I never would get the trick of it.The pituitary extract is now an amber colored liquid, perfectly clear and ready to be tested. here is where my physiological training comes in handy, for the material is tested on one horn of an isolated guinea-pig uterus. The apparatus is the usual kymograph affair with two drums driven by a very slow clockwork. The muscle is kept immersed in warm, oxygenated Locke-Ringer's solution and can be kept alive from six to eight hours. (I'm sorry I haven't "learned to draw," or I'd make a diagram of the apparatus for you). Spontaneous contractions begin almost immediately and are controlled by
wlweights, when they are small and uniform, a definite amount of a standard extract - usually 0.01 cc of a 1:10 dilution - is pipetted into the cylinder in which the muscle is suspended. If a tonic contraction is not produced, the muscle is washed off with fresh Ringer's and after an interval of 15 minutes or so, a bigger dose is added. If the muscle is any good at all, 0.05 cc of a 1:10 dilution will produce a definite tonic contraction.The next thing is to find out if the muscle can be depended upon for accurate
faquantitative work. For instance, if a 0.1 cc dose does not cause a contraction curve approximately twice as high as a 0.05 cc dose, the muscle had better be discarded at once. If the muscle is found sensitive and reliable, the amount of standard necessary to give a good tonic contraction is pipetted in the curve obtained, muscle washed off, and then the same amount of material of unknown strength pipetted in and the curve obtained. This procedure is kept up until two or three pairs of curves have been obtained, and the strength of the unknown extract can then be readily determined by comparing the height of the curves made by it with the height of the curves made by the standard. The unknown is usually much stronger and has to be diluted and tested over until it is the same strength as the standard solution. Then it is sent over to the filling rooms where it is filled in 1/2 cc or 1 cc ampules, and my responsibility for the extract is over.It's very popular stuff just now - of course it is used chiefly to stimulate uterine contractions in cases of delayed labor - it is also used to stop hemorrhages, raise blood pressure, prevent intestinal stasis after surgical operations, etc. It's very powerful stuff, too.
The work is very interesting though I have had hard times with it occasionally. It is quite characteristic of me that I made all the possible mistakes and even invented a few original ones! I am directly under Dr. Clock, the assistant director, who is a fish and a mollycoddle. However I can always go to Mr. Beard, the director, who is a man and knows what he is talking about and means what he says.
Of course the war boomed the manufacture of serums, antitoxins and vaccines tremendously. Lederle just about tripled its size. Now things are pretty slack, but they expect business to pick up in the summer. My work naturally has not been affected.
By the way, did you ever use tincture of benzoin instead of shellac to preserve kymograph records? Personally, I like it much better - it doesn't make such a stiff, shiny, gummy surface, and the records don't crack
andor have that abominable tendency to depart from the glue.As you may have imagined, Pearl River is a little place and not particularly interesting except that it's near New York. All winter I lived with three other girls who worked with the lab - one made the tip toxin, one had charge of the pneumo work, and one was doing the work on gas gangrene - all girls from Hunter. - one Jew, one Catholic, one German! But we got along beautifully. Two of them have since left the lab but another young woman has come in with us, so now we are three. She has worked at Lederle six years and is now head of the department which does the sterility and potency testing.
We three have an apartment of our own and get our own breakfasts and lunches. It is much more fun than boarding. Hours at the lab are from 8:10 to 5:25 with Saturday afternoons off. You are expected to work overtime when it is necessary.
Whenever you come to New York and have time, come up to the Lab and look it over. I think it would interest you, and I should like to see you very much. It is
olyonly an hour's ride from the city on the Erie R.R.Did I say this was to be a letter? I should have said a young volume. I hope I have included a few of the things you wanted to know.
Affectionately yours,
Frances L. Clapp.