Message from Sam Levinson

Message from Sam Levinson

Dear Abby ran this in her column:

SAM LEVINSON’S ANSWER TO AN ANTI-SEMITE.

“It’s a free world; you don’t have to like Jews, but if you don’t, I suggest that you boycott certain Jewish products, like the Wasserman test for syphilis; digitalis, discovered by a Dr. Nuslin; insulin, discovered by Dr. Minofsky; chloral hydrate for convulsions, discovered by Dr. Lifreich; the Schick test for diptheria; vitamins, discovered by Dr. Funk; steptomycin, discovered by Dr. Z. Woronan, the polio pill by Dr. A. Sabin and the polio vaccine by Dr. Jonas Salk.

“Go on, boycott! Humanitarian consistency requires that my people offer all these gifts to all people of the world. Fanatic consistency requires that all bigots accept syphilis, diabetes, convulsions, malnutrition, infantile paralysis and turberculosis as a matter of principle.

“You want to be mad? Be mad! But I’m telling you, you ain’t going to feel so good!”

Followup:

DEAR ABBY: Your recent column, in which you quoted the late, beloved Sam Levinson, contained an error.

In listing some outstanding contributions to medical science made by Jews, Levinson credited a Dr. Z. Woronan with the discovery of streptomycin.

Abby, I hope the Nobel Committee in Sweden doesn’t hear about this, because in 1952 they awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine to Dr. Selman Abraham Waksman of Rutgers University for discovering streptomycin!

However, Dr. Waksman belongs on that list because he, too, was Jewish.

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