Thanksgiving Day, November 1936. As was her custom, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States of America, had conjured up a sumptuous feast at her house in the New York suburb of Hyde Park. The traditional Thanksgiving turkey was surrounded by all sorts of delicious holiday treats. The table looked glorious. However, just that morning a serious problem had arisen. A phone call from Boston had informed Mrs. Roosevelt that her son, Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR) Jr, had been taken to hospital. The problem had apparently started with a sinus infection. But then things started to go rapidly downhill. The streptococcal bacterium FDR Jr was infected with began to spread. He developed an abscess in his cheek which then moved to his throat, producing an extremely painful case of “strep throat”. FDR Jr’s temperature rose to very high levels, and he began to cough up blood. He was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital. His doctors became seriously worried. If the infection entered his blood, producing a general systemic infection known as sepsis, it was quite possible he would die. The situation was critical. With FDR Jr’s fiancé Ethel du Pont and his mother continuously at his bedside, the Harvard doctors pondered their next move. There really wasn’t a standard treatment for this kind of condition. Nevertheless, Dr. George Loring Tobey Jr, the otolaryngologist involved in the case had an idea. He would try a new experimental drug which he had previously tested on some of his most serious patients. The drug was called Prontosil Rubrum or Prontosil Red. True to its name it was a bright red dye that had been developed by a scientist at the IG Farben company in Germany as part of their program for developing drugs derived from dyes that could fight microbial infections. More…