The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (49 page)

Henrietta’s medical records, provided to me by her family, are not publicly available, but some information on her diagnosis can be found in Howard W. Jones, “Record of the First Physician to see Henrietta Lacks at the Johns Hopkins Hospital: History of the Beginning of the HeLa Cell Line,”
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
176, no. 6 (June 1997): S227-S228.

Chapter 2: Clover

Information on the history of Virginia tobacco production came from the Virginia Historical Society, the Halifax County website, archival documents and news articles at the South Boston Library, and several books, including
Cigarettes: Anatomy of an Industry, from Seed to Smoke
, by Tara Parker Pope, an overview of tobacco history for the general public.

Several books helped me reconstruct the era and places in which Henrietta lived, including
Country Folks: The Way We Were Back Then in Halifax County, Virginia
, by Henry Preston Young, Jr;
History of Halifax
, by Pocahontas Wight Edmunds;
Turner Station
, by Jerome Watson;
Wives of Steel
, by Karen Olson; and
Making Steel
, by Mark Reutter. The history of Turner Station is also chronicled in news articles and documents housed at the Dundalk Patapsco Neck Historical Society and the North Point Library in Dundalk, Maryland.

Chapter 3: Diagnosis and Treatment

For information on the development of the Pap smear, see G. N. Papanicolaou and H. F. Traut, “Diagnostic Value of Vaginal Smears in Carcinoma of Uterus,”
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
42 (1941), and “Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer by the Vaginal Smear,” by George Papanicolaou and H. Traut (1943).

Richard TeLinde’s research on carcinoma in situ and invasive carcinoma, and his concern about unnecessary hysterectomies, is documented in many papers, including “Hysterectomy: Present-Day Indications,
“ JMSMS
(July 1949); G. A. Gavin, H. W. Jones, and R. W TeLinde, “Clinical Relationship of Carcinoma in Situ and Invasive Carcinoma of the Cervix,
“ Journal of the American Medical Association
149, no. 8 (June 2, 1952); R. W TeLinde, H. W. Jones and G. A. Gavin, “What Are the Earliest Endometrial Changes to Justify a Diagnosis of Endometrial Cancer?”
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 66
, no. 5 (November 1953); and TeLinde, “Carcinoma in Situ of the Cervix,”
Obstetrics and Gynecology
1, no. 1 (January 1953); also the biog raphy
Rich ard Wesley TeLinde
, by Howard W. Jones, Georgeanna Jones, and William E. Ticknor.

For information on the history of radium and its use as a cancer treatment, see
The First 100 Years;
the website of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency at epa.gov/iris/subst/0295.htm; D. J. DiSantis and D. M. DiSantis, “Radiologic History Exhibit: Wrong Turns on Radiology’s Road of Progress,”
Radiographics
11 (1991); and
Multiple Exposures: Chronicles of the Radiation Age
, by Catherine Caufield.

Sources on the standard treatment regimen for cervical cancer in the 1950s include A. Brunschwig, “The Operative Treatment of Carcinoma of the Cervix: Radical Panhysterectomy with Pelvic Lymph Node Excision,”
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 61
, no. 6 (June 1951); R. W Green, “Carcinoma of the Cervix: Surgical Treatment (A
Review),” Journal of the Maine Medical Association
42, no. 11 (November 1952); R. T Schmidt, “Panhysterectomy in the Treatment of Carcinoma of the Uterine Cervix: Evaluation of Results,
“ JAMA
146, no. 14 (August 4, 1951); and S. B. Gus-berg and J. A. Corscaden, “The Pathology and Treatment of Adenocarcinoma of the Cervix,”
Cancer
4, no. 5 (September 1951).

Growth of the L-cell (the first immortal cell line, grown from a mouse) was documented in W R. Earle et al., “Production of Malignancy in Vitro. IV. The Mouse Fibroblast Cultures and Changes Seen in Living Cells,”
Journal of the NCI
4 (1943).

For information about Gey’s pre-HeLa cell culture work, see G. O. Gey, “Studies on the Cultivation of Human Tissue Outside the Body,”
Wisconsin JJ
. 28, no. 11 (1929); G. O. Gey and M. K. Gey, “The Maintenance of Human Normal Cells and Human Tumor Cells in Continuous Culture I. A Preliminary Report,”
American Journal of Cancer
27, no. 45 (May 1936); an overview can be found in G. Gey, F Bang, and M. Gey, “An Evaluation of Some Comparative Studies on Cultured Strains of Normal and Malignant Cells in Animals and Man,”
Texas Reports on Biology and Medicine
(Winter 1954).

Chapter 4: The Birth of HeLa

For information on Gey’s development of the roller drum, see “An Improved Technic for Massive Tissue Culture,”
American Journal of Cancer
17 (1933); for his early work filming cells, see G. O. Gey and W. M. Firor, “Phase Contrast Microscopy of Living Cells,”
Annals of Surgery
125 (1946). For the abstract he eventually published documenting the initial growth of the HeLa cell line, see G. O. Gey, W. D. Coffman, and M. T. Kubicek, “Tissue Culture Studies of the Proliferative Capacity of Cervical Carcinoma and Normal Epithelium,”
Cancer Research
12 (1952): 264–65. For a thorough discussion of his work on HeLa and other cultures, see G. O. Gey, “Some Aspects of the Constitution and Behavior of Normal and Malignant Cells Maintained in Continuous Culture,”
The Harvey Lecture Series L
(1954–55).

Chapter 5: “Blackness Be Spreadin All Inside”

TeLinde’s discussion of the “psychic effects of hysterectomy” can be found in “Hysterectomy: Present-Day Indications,
“ Journal of the Michigan State Medical Society
, July 1949.

Chapter 6: “Lady’s on the Phone”

Papers from the first HeLa symposium were published in “The HeLa Cancer Control Symposium: Presented at the First Annual Women’s Health Conference, Morehouse School of Medicine, October 11, 1996,” edited by Roland Pattillo,
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
suppl. 176, no. 6 (June 1997).

For an overview of the Tuskegee study aimed at the general public, see
Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
, by James H. Jones; see also “Final Report of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Legacy Committee,” Vanessa Northington Gamble, chair (May 20, 1996).

Chapter 7: The Death and Life of Cell Culture

For the television segment featuring George Gey, see “Cancer Will Be Conquered,”
Johns Hopkins University: Special Collections Science Review Series
(April 10, 1951).

For additional reading on the history of cell culture, see
Culturing Life: How Cells Became Technologies
, by Hannah Landecker, the definitive history; also see
The Immortalists: Charles Lindberg, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever
, by David M. Friedman. For a general over view of Hopkins’s contributions to cell culture, see “History of Tissue Culture at Johns Hopkins,”
Bulletin of the History of Medicine (1977)
.

To re-create the story of Alexis Carrel and his chicken heart, I relied on these sources and many others: A. Carrel and M. T Burrows, “Cultivation of Tissues in Vitro and Its Technique,”
Journal of Experimental Medicine
(January 15, 1911); “On the Permanent Life of Tissues Outside of the Organism,”
Journal of Experimental Medicine
(March 15, 1912); Albert H. Ebeling, “A Ten Year Old Strain of Fibroblasts,”
Journal of Experimental Medicine
(May 30, 1922), and “Dr. Carrel’s Immortal Chicken Heart,”
Scientific American
(January 1942); “The ‘Immortality’ of Tissues,”
Scientific American
(October 26, 1912); “On the Trail of Immortality,”
McClure’s
(January 1913); “Herald of Immortality Foresees Suspended Animation,”
Newsweek
(December 21, 1935); “Flesh That Is Immortal,”
World’s Work
28 (October 1914); “Carrel’s New Miracle Points Way to Avert Old Age!”
New York Times Magazine
(September 14, 1913); Alexis Carrel, “The Immortality of Animal Tissue, and Its Significance,”
The Golden Book Magazine
7 (June 1928); and “Men in Black,”
Time
31, number 24 (June 13, 1938). The Nobel Prize website also contains much useful information about Carrel.

For a history of cell culture in Europe, see W. Duncan, “The Early History of Tissue Culture in Britain: The Interwar Years,”
Social History of Medicine
18, no. 2 (2005), and Duncan Wilson, “‘Make Dry Bones Live’: Scientists’ Responses to Changing Cultural Representation of Tissue Culture in Britain, 1918–2004,” dissertation, University of Manchester (2005).

The conclusion that Carrel’s chicken-heart cells were not actually immortal comes from interviews with Leonard Hayflick; also J. Witkowski, “The Myth of Cell Immortality,”
Trends in Biochemical Sciences
(July 1985), and J. Witkowski, letter to the editor,
Science
247 (March 23, 1990).

Chapter 9: Turner Station

The newspaper article that documented Henrietta’s address was Jacques Kelly, “Her Cells Made Her Immortal,”
Baltimore Sun
, March 18, 1997. The article by Michael Rogers was “The Double-Edged Helix,”
Rolling Stone
(March 25, 1976).

Chapter 10: The Other Side of the Tracks

For reports of the decline of Clover, see, for example, “South Boston, Halifax County, Virginia,” an Economic Study by Virginia Electric and Power Company; “Town Begins to Move Ahead,”
Gazette-Virginian
(May 23, 1974); “Town Wants to Disappear,”
Washington Times
(May 15, 1988); and “Supes Decision Could End Clover’s Township,”
Gazette-Virginian
(May 18, 1998); “Historical Monograph: Black Walnut Plantation Rural Historic District, Halifax County, Virginia,” Old Dominion Electric Cooperative (April 1996). Population figures are available at census.gov.

PART TWO: DEATH

Chapter 12: The Storm

For a discussion of the history of court decisions and rights regarding autopsies, see
Subjected to Science
, by Susan Lederer.

Chapter 13: The HeLa Factory

For further reading on the history of the polio vaccine, see
The Virus and the Vaccine
, by Debbie Bookchin and Jim Shumacher;
Polio: An American Story
, by David M. Oshinski;
Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio
, by Jeffrey Kluger; and
The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Crisis in Vaccines
, by Paul Offit.

Details of the initial growth of poliovirus using HeLa cells, and the subsequent development of shipping methods, is documented in letters housed at the AMCMA and the March of Dimes Archives, as well as in J. Syverton, W. Scherer, and G. O. Gey, “Studies on the Propagation in Vitro of Poliomyelitis Virus,”
Journal of Experimental Medicine 97
, no. 5 (May 1, 1953).

The history of the HeLa mass production facilities at Tuskegee is documented in letters, expense reports, and other documents at the March of Dimes Archives. For a comprehensive overview, see Russell W. Brown and James H. M. Henderson, “The Mass Production and Distribution of HeLa Cells at the Tuskegee Institute, 1953–55,”
Journal of the History of Medicine
38 (1983).

A detailed history of many scientific advances that followed the growth of HeLa can be found in letters and other papers in the AMCA and TCAA. The book
Culturing Life: How Cells Became Technologies
, by Han nah Lan decker, provides a comprehensive overview. Many of the scientific papers referred to in this chapter are collected in
Readings in Mammalian Cell Culture
, edited by Robert Pollack, including H. Eagle, “Nutrition Needs of Mammalian Cells in Tissue Culture,”
Science
122 (1955): 501–4; T T. Puck and P. I. Marcus, “A Rapid Method for Viable Cell Titration and Clone Production with HeLa Cells in Tissue Culture: The Use of X-irradiated Cells to Study Conditioning Factors,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
41 (1955); J. H. Tjio and A. Levan, “The Chromosome Number of Man,”
Cytogenics
42 (January 26, 1956). See also M. J. Kottler, “From 48 to 46: Cytological Technique, Preconception, and the Counting of Human Chromosomes,”
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
48, no. 4 (1974); H. E. Swim, “Microbiological Aspects of Tissue Culture,”
Annual Review of Microbiology
13 (1959); J. Craigie, “Survival and Preservation of Tumors in the Frozen State,”
Advanced Cancer Research
2 (1954); W. Scherer and A. Hoo gasian, “Preservation at Subzero Temperatures of Mouse Fibroblasts (Strain L) and Human Epithelial Cells (Strain HeLa),”
Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine
87, no. 2
(1954);
T. C. Hsu, “Mammalian Chromosomes in Vitro: The Karyotype of Man,”
Journal of Heredity
43 (1952); and D. Pearlman, “Value of Mammalian Cell Culture as Biochemical Tool,”
Science
160 (April 1969); and N. P. Salzman, “Animal Cell Cultures,”
Science
133, no. 3464 (May 1961).

Other useful resources for this chapter include
Human and Mammalian Cytogenetics: An Historical Perspective
, by T C. Hsu; and C. Moberg, “Keith Porter and the Founding of the Tissue Culture Association: A Fiftieth Anniversary Tribute, 1946–1996,”
In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology-Animal
(November 1996).

Chapter 14: Helen Lane

The debate about releasing Henrietta’s name to the public is documented in letters located in the AMCA. The article that identified “Henrietta Lakes” as the source of the HeLa cell line was “U Polio-detection Method to Aid in Prevention Plans,”
Minneapolis Star
, November 2, 1953. The first article to identify “Helen L.” as the source of the HeLa cell line was Bill Davidson, “Probing the Secret of Life,”
Collier’s
, May 14, 1954.