July 25 2007

Text By Greg Fallis

When Gertrude Elion was twenty years old and applying for a job as a research assistant, she was told she couldn't be hired because she was "too cute." Her presence would distract the men in the laboratory from the serious work they were undertaking. That was in 1938; fifty years later Elion was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

This girl, so carefully watering her toy plant, is unlikely to have to deal with the sort of discrimination experienced by Gertrude Elion. Her intelligence, her creativity, her talent and skill will be nourished with all the care she is giving to her toy plant. There will be obstacles ahead of her, of course, but people like Gertrude Elion have prepared the way.

Voltaire told us we must all cultivate our own garden. I think Gertrude Elion would have agreed. This girl...this earnest and charming child...and all the children like her are our garden.