Medicine: California v. New York

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Mrs. Grace Isabell Hammond Conners, 31, the slim, comely, brown-eyed, determined widow of the late William James ("Fingy") Conners, Buffalo steamship, newspaper and political tycoon. The Connerses lived so gaily at "The Monastery," their estate at Huntington, Long Island, that since he died (1929) she has refused to return there. (One of the rooms is paved with old tombstones.) She also gave up the motorboat racing at which she was enthusiastically expert. Last summer while she was traveling in California and thinking of founding a children's home somewhere with her inherited wealth (she is a devout Roman Catholic convert), she heard of the Coffey-Humber cancer work in San Francisco. She visited the Southern Pacific General Hospital unannounced and found the patients praising Coffey, Humber and God. Injections they had received had relieved their pain. Their cancerous growths were sloughing off. Mrs. Conners was persuaded that Drs. Coffey & Humber were on the track of a positive cure for cancer. Later, in Manhattan, Mrs. Conners met the Californians personally. For their further experimental work they could have, she then told them, "The Monastery" which with its 15 acres was worth $1,000,000. She would also see that they had an endowment. Dr. Coffey replied that he would accept the gift only in the name of the Better Health Foundation of California.

Celestine James Sullivan, 58, doctor of laws, is secretary of the Better Health Foundation. Its purpose is to improve general health in California. To that end it cooperates with California medical schools and research institutions (like the Hooper Foundation); publishes health advice in the daily papers; prints Better Health, a magazine like the American Medical Association's Hygeia. Dr. Sullivan, physically a huge man, when he learned of the proposed Conners gift, went to

C. Walcott Durbrow, 51, the physically tiny valuation counsel of the Southern Pacific. Mr. Durbrow was in Washington early last week, trying a case before the Supreme Court of the U. S. He dashed to New York to try to consummate the legal work he began in San Francisco last autumn. That work was the chartering of a New York Better Health Foundation to take possession of "The Monastery." His legal correspondent in New York is

Herbert Livingston Satterlee, 67, silver-haired, silver-bearded, blue-eyed corporation lawyer and humanitarian. Near him as he stood at the Manhattan hearing last week sat his wife, who is John Pierpont Morgan's sister. She knew that this cancer dogfight was distracting Mr. Satterlee from his battle to get back for depositors the savings they entrusted to the failed Bank of U. S. (TIME, Dec. 22 et seq.). She knew how he had got into the cancer fight: at Lawyer Durbrow's request. Mr. Satterlee had organized the New York Better Health Foundation. Then he had learned of harsh medical opposition to the Coffey-Humber work. Why should they not have opportunity to work in New York as in California? he wondered. Let them have opportunity to prove their value or their futility. He dashed into the professional battle with all his tenacity and brilliance, despite the fact that some of his best friends, potent New York medicine men, were opposing him.*