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a2 * o i To: Washington Fréid From: Washington a. Re: 279A-WF-222936, 07/18/2005 Page 377 Beside him stood Max Gottlieb, and in Gottlieb's power he reverently sought to explain that mankind has ever given up eventual greatness because some crisis, some war or election or loyalty to a Messiah which at the moment seemed weighty, has choked the patient search for truth. He sought to explain that he could-perhaps- save half of a given district, but that to test for all time the value of phage, the other half must be left without it...though, he craftily told them, in any case the luckless half would receive as much care as at present. As the above excerpts illustrate, Martin Arrowsmith, the protagonist, learns that, in order to ensure his experimental plague vaccine works, he must allow some people to die of plague instead of immunizing them. Arrowsmith's mentor, Max Gottlieb, teaches him that people have to die in the short run in order for the world as a whole to be saved in the long run. In addition, Gottlieb takes a cynical view of the world, and feels that it may not be worth saving in the first place, with its unlovable people and overcrowded conditions. This satirical novel presents Arrowsmith and Gottlieb's view of society and how they, as scientists, must be more loyal to the search for truth and scientific breakthroughs than to soft-heartedness and temporary solutions. . +¢