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How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution
by Jonathan Eig
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Pincus and Hoagland did their best to make the old ladies' home
look like a hall of science. They converted the sun porch to a library.
Bedrooms became laboratories. One bedroom-turned-laboratory
became a bedroom again when Chang arrived from China by way
of Scotland and England to work with Pincus. Though Chang spoke
little English, Pincus had spotted something in the scientist, enticing
him to join the Foundation for the paltry salary of $2,000 a year (or
about $26,000 by today's standards). Chang, who knew Pincus by
reputation, thought he would be working in one of America's prestigious
institutes and that his fellowship would include free lodging,
perhaps on campus, or at least nearby. He did get free lodging, but
his room was at the YMCA. He and Pincus would travel to and from
work by bus. Later, he would move to the Foundation, sleeping on
a small bed in the corner of a converted laboratory and using Bunsen
burners to heat his meager meals. As a strict Confucian, Chang
didn't mind. He reported proudly that for one important experiment
in 1947 he had stored fertilized rabbit eggs in his kitchen refrigerator.
Pincus told Chang that he had spoken to Margaret Sanger about her
desire for a pill to prevent pregnancy. It had to be a pill, he explained,
not an injection, jelly, liquid, or foam, and not a mechanical device
used in the vagina. When Pincus talked in this way—with a sense of
purpose, hands chopping at the air, his eyes glittering beneath those
bushy brows—his colleagues paid attention.
Goody Pincus was not one of those soft-spoken geniuses content to
let his work speak for itself. He was a powerfully built man with a lean,
muscular frame. Though his suits and ties were invariably cheap and
occasionally mismatched, he nevertheless carried himself with aristocratic
self-possession. His voice was stentorian. Confidence was one
of his strongest tools. He understood something many scientists did
not: that scientific exploration and experimentation were only parts of
the job; another equally important part was selling. An idea, no matter
how good, might easily die if it were not aggressively pitched—to
other scientists, to backers with deep pockets, and, ultimately, to the
public. It was the selling that had helped sink him at Harvard, but
Pincus was undeterred. He knew from the start that it would be one
thing to build a birth-control pill and another to persuade the world
to accept it. The scientist attempting such a task would have to be
prepared to do both, or there would be little point trying.
Pincus and Chang discussed a scientific paper from 1937—"The
Effect of Progesterin and Progesterone on Ovulation in the Rabbit,"
by A. W. Makepeace, G. L. Weinstein, and M. H. Friedman of the
University of Pennsylvania. It reported that injections of the hormone
progesterone prevented ovulation in rabbits. Though it had been a
huge discovery at the time, no one had tried to explore the implications
for humans. There were many reasons. For one thing, scientists
weren't seeking innovations in contraception. There was neither prestige
nor money in the work, only risk. And even if they had tried,
progesterone was too expensive at that time to be widely used.
But when Pincus met Sanger and listened to her plea, attitudes on
birth control were shifting—at least a little. Perhaps more important,
however, was the evolution then taking place in the field of biology.
Scientists were beginning to understand the inner workings of the
body well enough to tinker with them. Before the 1950s drugs were
mostly developed with the "suck-and-see" approach, as the British
referred to trial-and-error experiments. A scientist would concoct a
formula in a lab, gulp it down like Dr. Jekyll, and see what effects
it had. But those days were nearing an end. Pincus and Chang knew
how progesterone functioned. Now the task was to see if they could
produce it, modify it, and put it to use. Fortunately, new technology
was making progesterone less expensive to obtain. If Sanger would
pay for it, Pincus thought he had a good idea of how to proceed.
Excerpted from Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution by Jonathan Eig. Copyright © 2014 by Jonathan Eig. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
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