ABSTRACT
The history of cancer chemotherapy is usually traced to the sensational December 2, 1943, incident (1) that occurred at the harbor of Bari, Italy. An air raid destroyed 17 allied ships including one containing mustard “bombs” (being stored as possible retaliation to the threat of chemical warfare): exposed personnel experienced the marrow hypoplasia and involution of lymphoid tissue previously reported with sulfur mustard gas during World War I (2). In fact, the medicinal studies of the related nitrogen mustard by U.S. governmental agencies in concert with biomedical researchers at academic institutions such as Yale had already started in 1942 (3-5) and was further catalyzed by the search for effective drugs against chronic infections including tuberculosis (6). This constellation of events led to the creation of the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) that were to play a pivotal role in launching the era of anticancer chemotherapy. These government entities had the ability to sponsor scientific exchanges with other national and international institutions functioning largely unencumbered by profit motives. They succeeded as a clearing house of ideas to combat cancer in spite-in retrospect-of the rather primitive understanding of neoplastic growth and its molecular biology.
