November 1, 1944
Dear Dr. Drew:
Yesterday we talked with our representative, Mr. R. M. Alphran who was recently in Washington and who talked to you at length about the work that you had done in developing the use of banked human blood and blood plasma in human beings. Also through the kindness of Mr. Alphran we have been very much interested in reading over your paper giving the history of the Soviet development of the blood bank.
This conversation with Mr. Alphran was particularly interesting because on the preceding day we had had a letter from Doctor Ira R. St. Hill of Meharry Medical College commenting at length on our story of human blood plasma in the September number of our What's New. I am sure that you would be interested in reading Doctor St. Hill's letter but it is too long to copy and we are not ready to give it up. The burden of his letter was that our story was incomplete inasmuch as we had overlooked your contribution to the development of blood banks and pooled plasma. I believe that you will be interested in reading a copy of the letter that I have written to Doctor St. Hill and a copy is enclosed.
As you will see we have indicated to him that our purpose was to primarily tell the story of the Army-Navy-Red Cross blood donor project, also that we are asking his permission to publish his letter in its entirety, or if for any reason he feels that he would not want us to do this, then we would like to make a separate story of the facts contained in his letter.
In case he should prefer that his letter not be published as such and we rewrite the story of your work as he has presented it to us, we shall be glad to send you a copy of the text for your criticism before it goes to the printers.
Thanks very much for the courtesies extended to Mr. Alphran.
Sincerely,
Edgar B. Carter
Associate Director of Research