Saturday, August 29, 2015

What if Penicillin really was a miracle ?

What if we never find the mis-laid personal account from Henry Dawson, finally explaining the reasons for the other Manhattan Project, because that document never actually existed.

Because perhaps Dawson could never explain, even to himself, just why he began the project.... and why he carried it through at the cost of his own life.

Because Dr Dawson perhaps sometimes felt propelled forward by forces beyond his ken, to do what he did, regardless of the cost.

I can and I will, give my best educated guesses as to why Dawson rationally and deliberately did what he did --- but I have no proof, no proof at all.

Another reason, a very celestial reason, makes just as much sense and has just as much proof.

Or maybe a bit more - because in 1943-1946, it was very common indeed, among the devout and among the atheists alike, to speak of the "miracle" of penicillin.

As a Roman Catholic doctor* once remarked to Margaret Jennings about the atheist Howard Florey and penicillin and miracles, wouldn't Florey have been surprised, if it really had been a miracle.

But won't we all have been surprised as well, the nominally devout at least as much as the militant doubter ?

What if God did choose to come back at the height of the horrible WWII, as a blob, like none of us, just a smear on a subway wall --- or on a tenement hall.

Once again, just to help Humanity find its way home....

*************

*recalled in Trevor Williams' biography of Howard Florey

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