The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Chapter 3 returns to 1951, when Henrietta’s gynecologist, Jones, diagnoses cancer of the cervix. The diagnosis coincides with a medical debate involving Jones and his boss, Richard Wesley TeLinde, about treatments for cervical cancer, and the author provides us with some details regarding the development and treatment of this type of cancer in the 1950s. TeLinde contacts George Gey (pronounced Guy), head of tissue culture research at Hopkins, who, along with his wife, Margaret, has spent 30 years trying unsuccessfully to grow human cells outside the body for the purposes of cancer research. TeLinde offers to give him samples from patients with cervical cancer.

When Henrietta receives a call from Jones with the news she has been dreading, she reacts stoically, keeping it to herself and simply telling her husband that she has to return to Hopkins for some more tests. She signs a consent form, giving permission for “any operative procedures […] that they may deem necessary” (31), and is put under anesthetic for her first radium treatment. Without Henrietta’s knowledge, the surgeon cuts two small pieces of tissue—one from her tumor, and one from a healthy part of her cervix—and sends them to Gey’s laboratory.