Peace, Liberty, Mycobacteria, and Tuberculosis Mortality

611 I 1935, Gerhard Domagk and Josef Klarer, working with dyes at the Bayer Institute of Pathology and Bacteriology, published the results of several clinical investigations of sulfamidochrysoidine. This antibacterial drug was the first of the sulfonamide-containing or related products that transformed approaches to treatment of infection and heralded the antibiotic era. Before that, the only antimicrobials available were the arsenicals (arsphenamine and neosalvarsan), which were used to treat syphilis. Sulfamidochrysoidine, produced under the trademark name of Prontosil, was demonstrated to be effective for treating streptococcal and staphylococcal infections. In 1939, Domagk was recognized with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; although the Third Reich forced him to decline the award, he subsequently received it in 1947. The year 1935 also was the final one in which a US dollar made predominantly of silver (silver dollar) was minted for general circulation. The coin was first issued in 1921. Its design earned it the name “Peace Dollar”; its reverse side portrays an American bald eagle with an olive branch in its talons, intended to celebrate the long-lasting peace that was to have followed the Great War, World War I. The bird is at rest, its wings folded, perched on a craggy rock above the word “Peace,” facing the dawn’s rays rising beyond distant hills. The front side of the coin depicts the profile of the head and neck of the goddess Liberty, a personification who had been represented on coins in ancient Greece as Eleutheria and in ancient Rome as Libertas. A departure from previous and more staid US representations of Liberty, the Peace Dollar goddess has hair pulled into a bun with stray locks loose and flowing, and wears a radiant tiara, likened to the sun god, Helios, as seen in depictions of rulers on coinage back to the third century bce. From the coin’s outset, the identity of the Liberty model was disputed. Some experts contended that the model was Maria Teresa Carafelli, wife of the coin’s designer, Antonio de Francisci, who had immigrated to America in 1905 and studied under several sculptors known for their designs of US coins of other denominations: James Fraser (the Buffalo Nickel, 1913–1935), Hermon MacNeil (the Standing Liberty Quarter, 1916–1930), Adolph Weinman Antonio de Francisci (1887−1964). US Silver Peace Dollar, 1935. Silver (90%), copper (10%), 1.5 in/38.1 mm. Photography by James Gathany. ABOUT THE COVER