On Aug. 12, 1954, George P. Larrick becomes Commissioner of Food and Drugs. In 1937, he was responsible for dispatching very nearly the entire field force of the FDA to track down remnants of the poisonous Elixir Sulfanilamide which killed 109 people, and dramatized the need for premarket testing of new drugs.

Larrick was also responsible for assembling an exhibit, dubbed by reporters, “The Chamber of Horrors,” which effectively documented the need for a new federal food and drugs act.