ABSTRACT
Mr. Carlson took matters in his own hands, or more correctly, his own truck. He loaded a dead heifer, about 100 pounds of the sweet clover hay, and a can of non-clotting cow blood. He drove nearly 200 miles through the snow to Madison to seek out the state veterinarian. That ofšce was closed, but chance brought him in contact with Professor Karl Paul Link in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin. Mr. Carlson’s disaster provided the spark that led to the discovery and development of a group of chemicals whose anticoagulant properties gave way to a myriad of uses (Link 1959).
