Summary

1 – Perina describes his reluctant attendance at medical school, saying it was the only way in which anyone (such as himself) with any interest in the human body could develop that interest. He describes in some detail, his experience as a member of the staff of research scientist Gregory Smythe, something of a scientific celebrity at the time (the 1940’s and 50’s) because of his belief that all cancer was caused by viruses, and that cancer could be cured by vaccines. Perina describes the hierarchy of assistants in the lab and the animals with which they all worked, mostly mice, dogs, and monkeys. “One heard the mice’s frantic, shrill peeping, the dogs’ futile, squealing whimpers, only when they were being removed from or replaced in their cages … only the monkeys complained and chattered and screeched all day...