Prize from the Soil

One of the earliest Nobel prizes in medicine (1905) went to Robert Koch for proving that tubercle bacilli were the cause of what was then called "consumption." No other TB fighter was so honored until last week when the first great step toward a chemical cure was recognized: the 1952 prize of $33,000 was awarded to

Microbiologist Selman Abraham Waksman (TIME, Nov. 7, 1949), 64, for his discovery of streptomycin.

At New Jersey's Rutgers University, amid test tubes and agar dishes in which he is trying to extract still more antibiotics from soil molds, Waksman said: "I feel proud in justifying the ancient saying -- I forget where it comes from -- 'And from the earth shall come thy salvation.' "

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