Letter from Michael Heidelberger to his mother, Fannie Camp Heidelberger

In this letter to his aging mother, Fannie Camp Heidelberger, Michael Heidelberger described his six-week visit to India in early 1952 as a delegate (in place of the ill Linus Pauling) to the Indian Science Congress in Calcutta. While in India Heidelberger had dinner with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, during which the two did not discuss science but U.S. foreign policy. As he reported in his letter, he was also able to realize his "lifelong dream... of immunizing an elephant." He injected human gamma globulin into the ear vein of a work elephant, and found that the animal was indeed a good producer of antiserum to the injected globulin.