1941

I will now go back to the description of my laboratory work in Havana, which I had interrupted. These were laborious experiments with mice, which I had to buy in pet shops, but there were not too many available and I had to pay 50 cents per mouse. I needed each time at least 20 mice and I had to spend many times an amount of ten dollars or more for each experiment. It was at first the white powder, with which I experimented, and I found out that it was correct what I had been told in Vienna, that it contained in one gramme [sic] the amount that went into a 5-gramme tube of ointment. I also finally found out that the number of mouse units per gramme was. This I could also confirm, when I extracted the venom from a few tubes of ointment, which I had brought with me from Vienna, and used the extract on mice.

I now knew what I needed to be able to produce the oint­ment. Now Mr. Johnson was again very helpful, by introducing me to Dr. Vieta, who had one of the biggest pharmaceutical la­boratories in Havana. He was professor of pharmacology at the medical school of the University of Havana. My Spanish was at that time already much better, so that I could explain to him what I had in mind. He showed great interest and understand­ing, especially since I could show him that the preparation Viperin was distributed in many countries in Europe, also that there were scientific articles published, which showed the good results of that medicine. He had at that time an associate, Dr. Plasencia, and the laboratory ran under the name Vieta-Plasencia, and he had to discuss the problem at first with him, before he gave me a positive answer. A few days later, I was invited to a conference, in which, besides Dr. Vieta and Dr. Plasencia the lawyer of the company, a Dr. Rojas, participated. The result was that a contract was prepared and signed by all participants. I was to receive royalties from all the prepa­rations sold, as far as I remember 6 or 7 %. I had to perform experiments with different kinds of snake venom, which had to be bought in Central- or South-America. Very soon we received small amounts of venom from a company in Costa Rica, among them also venom of which is common in that country, and I started soon to prepare the ointment with a Lanolin base. I had to test the venom again on mice to determine the strength and the amount that had to go into one gramme of ointment. I tried then the ointment on myself and other people, in the la­boratory as well as on some of my friends, when they had colds, and the results were excellent.

It took much time till the company had everything ready, tin tubes with the name Viperin printed on them, little boxes for the tubes, instructions how to use the ointment, which had to go into each little box, propaganda material, etc. It took many months, till the product was distributed and sold in phar­macies. I had to prepare the ointment in bigger amounts, in the beginning only one or two kilograms, later up to 5 kilo-gramms. Soon very favorable results started to come in, also publications in medical magazines. I received payment each time I delivered a bigger amount of the ointment. The first payment I received at about the time, when Hedy and Johanna had arrived in Havana, and we were very happy with it.

I had mentioned the lawyer Dr. Rojas, who had prepared the contract between me and the company Vieta-Plasencia. This man became very friendly towards me and shoved great interest in my personal situation. I told him among other things that I had a son in France and that I was very anxious to get him out of there and over to Cuba. He spoke about it to Dr. Vieta, who in turn discussed the matter with me. Dr. Vieta was an import­ant person in Havana, at that time dean of the medical school. He happened to be a personal friend of the director of the im­migration department, Dr. Ituarte, who was also a physician. Very soon Dr. Vieta arranged an appointment for me with Dr. Ituarte, who was very friendly towards me. As soon as I arriv­ed, he took me out to the seashore, which was close by, and took me along on a big yacht for a cruise in the bay of Havana. I had there the opportunity to tell him my story, and he said right away that that was not a difficult problem and that the visa for Francis would be sent right away to the Cuban consul in Nice. I was, of course, very happy, but was too shy to ask him also for a visa for Lisa, had also not much chance to tell him the complete story. The result was that the visa was sent only for Francis. I had thought that it would not be too difficult for Lisa to find somebody in Nice, who would take Francis along to Cuba. Lisa tried very hard and contacted many people, who were about to leave Nice for Havana. But no one of them wanted to take the responsibility. It was later on understandable for us. Travelling from France to Portugal was in those days enormously difficult, especially the passage through Spain, which implied changes of trains, which were overfilled, making steps in Madrid and perhaps in other cities, etc. So, the whole thing came to, naught and we were quite desperate.

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