In October 1943, Lasker persuaded a friend at the Digest to run a series of articles on the screening and detection of cancer. Within weeks, the articles set off a deluge of postcards, telegrams, and handwritten notes to the magazine’s office, often accompanied by small amounts of pocket money, personal stories, and photographs. A soldier grieving the death of his mother sent in a small contribution: “My mother died from cancer a few years ago.… We are living in foxholes in the Pacific theater of war, but would like to help out.” A schoolgirl whose grandfather had died of cancer enclosed a
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