Evening Star Newspaper, March 10, 1935, Page 51

Stage — Screen Music — Radio Part 4—8 Pages “MICROBE HUNTERS” By Randolph Roberts. ERY little honors_there are in the secluded Washington lab- oratories of the Federal health scientists who delve into the cause and cure of disease. Yet no risks are greater than those faced by these unheroic heroes of the test tube, who willingly and knowingly expose themselves to dan- gerous infections in the hope of un- earthing knowledge that may be of use to society. ‘The glory in such lone laboratory adventure is not great and the fame therefrom will not be a match to the renown that comes to the Nation's champion hog callers or polar explor- ers. But for plain unvarnished hero- ism that wages a solitary battle, with few thrills and little hope of reward, where can be found its equal? | Just the other day, Dr. Charles Armstrong, an outstanding “microbe hunter,” was reported recovering from the ravages of a new and unidentified virus, contracted while he was study- ing it in his laboratory. The virus was isolated from a case of sleeping sickness that occurred in St. Louis. This is the third mysterious malady that Dr. Armstrong has had. Back in 1923 he was stricken with dengue fever, an ailment something like in- fluenza. Passed on to men by mos- quitoes, no preventive has yet been found for it. Dengue also is known as “bonebreak fever,” for when you have it you feel as if your bones in- deed would break. Usually the pa- tient is severely ill for only three or four days. While the mortality is low, the ailment is very annoying. Then, in 1930, Dr. Armstrong, dur- ing the Nation-wide outbreak of par- rot fever, contracted the dread mal- ady. But more about that later. R. ARMSTRONG'S latest illness is the ninety-fifth “recovery” from infections contracted in regular line of duty in the Public Health Service personnel. There have been 16 fatalities, Two other health heroes have likewise had three serious ail- ments apiece: Dr. dengue, in a single year, 1907, and| came down with rabbit fever in 1910; whereas Dr. Edward Francis got dengue in 1913, rabbii fever in 1919 and parrot fever in 1930. Most life-snuffing of all the mys- terious maladies contracted in active service by the microbe hunters is Rocky Mountain spotted fever, with 4 fatalities and 12 recoveries. Next is typhus, with two deaths and five re- coveries. While rabbit fever has caused but one death to Federal lab- oratory workers, it nevertheless num- bers more recoveries—23 all told. Eleven health officers came down with parrot fever, with one death. Two other scientists, Drs. G. C.'Lake and Alice Evans, are listed as “still much disabled” after several years in the war against Malta fever. For days at a time the daring health heroes work with slides of the world’s most dangerous . typhus-like diseases, of which spotted fever is one. These strains are from all over the world and include maladies that are caused by such insects as ticks, lice, flehs, mites and kindred parasites. Back in 1909 the Federal soldiers of science brought their laboratory weapons into the Western wilderness to conquer spotted fever. { The 25-year-old battle against this | puzzling ailment is a heroic epic in Health Service records. At the start, | in certain sections, about 85 per cent of the fever’s victims perished. Four of the 75 research workers engaged in this warfare died up to 1930. Valiant | efforts and countless gambles with death brought success in the knowl- edge that spotted fever was prevent- able. Outstanding hero among these med- ical martyrs is Dr. R. R. Spencer. Nobody knew anything about the dis- ease until he entered the picture. He jabbed scores of fever germs into his arm to learn whether he had dis- covered the germ. He had. This was after months of constant exposure to death from tick bites in the remote Bitterroot Valley of West- ern Montana. Ranchers and hunters were dying wholesale in 1912 when the young doctor, then only 34, was sent out to the valley. They suddenly turned black. Residents of the Rocky Mountain States were panic-stricken. Doctors and bacteriologists who studied the malady also perished, among them Dr. Thomas B. McClintic of the Health Service. DID all this frighten Spencer? He | moved to the valley with his young wife and two children and set up a laboratory in an abandoned | school house. Valley people told him | what little they knew. You died only when a wood tick bit you. Spencer | knew one thing—that all these ticks couldn’t possibly be eradicated. But bushels of ticks were brought into the laboratory. Stewed and mashed, they were injected into guinea pigs. The Ppigs stayed well. | The fearless young scientist pulled ticks off a mountain goat, though his helpers explained no mountain goats ever had the fever. But those ticks which had been filled with goat blood were mashed up and injected. This time the guinea pigs died. | Spencer soon found that a tick was equally potent if full of guinea pig’s blood. He had been experi- menting with dry ticks, At about this time William Get- tinger, laboratory assistant, became sick and delirious. Soon he died of spotted fever. Spencer and R. R. Parker, an entomologist, went back to face death. They knew now how great was their danger. But they bred more thousands of ticks and took out heavy life insurance. Were they frightened? Plenty. Often they found ticks on the other fellow's clothes. But all that Winter and through that Spring and Summer they re- mained there, wallowing in death. Happily they now found a clue—that the few people who recovered from the dread ailment were thereafter im- mune and the scientists proved that any infected tick if filled with any kind of blood became deadly. They nourished and bred hundreds of thou- sands of ticks. Now Spencer brought a couple of thousands of the death bugs to Washington in the Fall of 1923. Parker remained in Montana. He experimented there until Spring. Meantime Spencer learned that a famous Austrian scientist had created a serum (which at least worked on guinea pigs) by mashing typhus lice and dropping them into carbolic acid. 8o Spencer tried it with spotted fever. He and Parked mashed up poisonous ticks, added carbolic acid and jabbed George McCoy | contracted two of them, typhoid and | 10 pigs after first inoculating them with the straight virus. The pigs re- mained healthy, * FEAT URES he Sunday Star WASHINGTON, D. C, SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 10, 1935. Books—Art Notes Mansfield—Proctor OF PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE L3 Day After Day These Federal Heroes of the Test Tube Are Experimenting With Mystertous Ailments in Order to Develop Neww Cures—Their Work Here in Washington and Afield Has Taken a Heavy Toll During the Past Few Years. But, what about human beings? The accepted theory was that the virus, if it were to make men .immune, must be living, not dead, from a germicide. The new mixture might kill or cure. NE day, back in May, 1924, Spencer rolled up his sleeves and jabbed the stuff into his arm—enough to slay thousands of guinea pigs. He lived. No one else took this risk then. But soon every member of the staff was thus vaccinated with Spencer's new-found serum. Spencer spent & year in Wash- ington, developing the vaccine. Since then thousands of Westerners and others have been vaccinated. The un- vaccinated folk who catch the fever almost always die. The vaccinated ones live. No wonder the American Medical Association gave Spencer a gold medal! In 1929 Dr. W. T. Harrison, bac- teriologist, came down with Malta, or undulant fever. He was the fifth health service worker to fall a victim to the germ. The warning posted on the laboratory at the Pasteur Insti- tute in Tunis, North Africa, where the malady has been studied in the country of its origin for a number of years, is significant of the risk run by the research workers. It reads: “All who enter here do so at their own risk.” Yet the warriors with test tube and microscope have not stood back, despite the fate of so many of their predecessors. Probably not one person in ten has even heard of Malta fever, Yet medi- cal science has waged a long cam- paign against the malady. And no wonder! It is not to be trifled with. puzzling because it's easy to diagnose as malaria. lingering and sometimes fatal ailment. There have been cases where the (4 It ‘is a| hig patient has run a fever every day for more than two years. Some victims have recurrent attacks for as many as five years. The only sure way of detection is in laboratory tests. Malta fever got its name from the island in -which it was first dis- covered. It plagued the Meditteranean countries for -years before it was found that the disease was trans- mitted through milk from infected goats which were to all appearances healthy. Its inroads were substan- tially checked. 1t would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of the Health Service's discoveries about this ailment. The names of four outstanding Federal scientists deserve particular mention —Dr. Alice Evans, Dr. G. C. Lake, Dr. Edward Francis and Dr. W. T. Harrison. Through studies of cultures and investigations in Washington and in the field, Miss Evans, in 1918, established that in this country Malta fever was caused by an organism found among cattle, thus determining its origin and the means of spread among cattle. Dr. Lake located and traced to goat’s milk 35 cases in Arizona. At- tacked by the disease, he was obliged to leave his investigations incomplete. The same tragedy has threatened all who attempted to_carry on to victory. DR. EVANS took up the task right after Dr. Lake and B. T. Sock- rider, laboratory assistant, had been stricken. She herself contracted the fever while handling a broken vial containing a quantity of the germs sent from Tunis. Dr. Edward Francis, bacteriologist, who succeeded her, evaded his micro- scopic foe successfully for 18 months, during which time he worked with hly dangerous laboratory material. Then he, too, became infected. His recovery, taking place within a couple > of months, was one of the quickest on | record. In few cases, apparently, is & | cure established within a period of six ‘ months. | Dr. Harrison, another eminent bac- | teriologist, volunteered to make 8! Above, at left: Medical Artist Inez M. Demonet making a graphical sketch of an insect responsibie for the world-wide spread of endemic typhus fever. Above, at right: Bacteriologist John H. Huston and his “garden of death-dealing disease cultures.” There is cholera, diphtheria, typhoid and anthrax, enough to destroy a large city, in these tubes. Below, at left: This queer-looking apparatus is being used by Tech- nician H. C. Turner for drying serums. Below, at right: Dr. Alice C. Evans, senior bacteriologist, is making & close study of a tiny organism which causes undulant fever. culture of a sample of Dr. Francis' blood. He took every precaution known to protect himself against the fever. But in vain. For well over a year the scientist was unable to conduct his beloved research work. Besides the findings, already men- tioned, of these laboratory experts only this much is now known: Cow’s milk can cause the disease. The best method of control is the pasteuriza- tion of milk at a temperature of 143 degrees Fahrenheit. Thus far not much is known about effective treat- | ment, once the malady has taken hold. Which explains why today Yes, It’s Cold in Benudji AS it cold enough for you this Winter? Try Bemidji, Minn., where it not only is cold, but they boast about it. And to give their boast- ing an authentic ring, the United States Government maintains & ‘Weather Bureau "h::fi to issue “offi- cial” temperature readings. The result is that the bulk of cold weather stories you read in your daily papers say that Bemidji reported the lowest temperature of any current cold spell—probably some 35 or 40 degrees below zero. Taking its peculiar name from that of an old Indian chief who lived nearby, Bemidji shivered for a few years as a trading post for nearby Indians and woodsmen until 1896, when it was incorporated as a village. In 1898 the Great Northern Railway discovered the community and ran its lines into the village. It was just as cold in Bemidji in those days, but the arrival of the rail- road and three other railroads during the next few years brought some peo< ple, who warmed things up a bit. For instance, a Bemidji booster says: “When railroad connections were made with the outside world, Bemidji became a wild, wide-open lumbering town. It might have passed for & miniature Barbary Coast, with its saloons and gambling houses. In 1905 the community was incorporated as - a city, and at that time, although it had less than 3,000 population, it had 44 saloons.” Indian complications necessitated closing the saloons, however, and “since 1913, the city has been steadily advancing to a higher plane.” ‘Bemidji has become sporting minded in a more approved fashion now, espe- cially in the Winter varieties. At- tendance at its carnivals averages about 10,000 and horse racing on the ice of Lake Bemidji has become one of the attractions. In case you go up for a Winter vacation some time, Bem- idjians give assurance that no con- cern need be felt about the ice melt- ing. In a February week in 1933, for example, the thermometer reached a high of 12 above zero, while hitting a low of 45 under. The mark of 45 be- low on February 8 of that year was a record. Aside from the fact of the Weather Bureau's location, Bemidjians blame their low temperatures upon their geographical and topographical loca- tion. Well to the north as far as the United States is concerned, the city also has an elevation of about 1,370 feet. - And though the sun rises as early as 3 a.m. at certain times of the year and stays up until 9 pm, .it never causes any uncomfortable heat. In fact, if you're cold enough here this Winter, keep Bemidji in mind next Summer, Malta is still the bane of physicians and health officials. Federal authori- ties point out that unless State, county and Government agencies insist on proper pasteurization of milk in every city, town and hamlet in the Nation, we may expect Malta fever out- breaks to occur from time to time. No name is mentioned oftener in the Health Service's fight against mysterious diseases than that of Dr. Edward Francis. We have told how he battled against Malta fever and himself succumbed. Equally worthy, thrilling and risk-taking was his lab- oratory warfare against tularemia, or rabbit fever, a new and deadly disease which takes its name from Tulare County, Calif. The ailment morbidly affects the liver and spleen of human beings. All medical science was in the dark as to its exact cause. Dr. Francis dis- covered that the wild rabbit, jack, or cottontail, as it is variously called, is the common carrier. Suspecting that deer flies got the infection from the jack rabbits, Dr. Francis had 556 of these animals shot and dissected on the spot. Some 17 were found to be infected by inocu- lating their blood into healthy animals that had been shipped from Washing- ton. Germ cultures verified this verdict. Seven days after research work in the Federal field laboratory in Utah had begun, one of the bacteriologists became ill. It was three or four months before he was able to perform his duties without fatigue. ‘Three weeks after his assistant was smitten, Dr. Francis himself broke down. He became tired and weak— came back to Washington and couldn't work for three months. In Utah Fran- cis had exposed himself to hundreds of infected laboratory animals. FOB two years he worked with in- fected guinea pigs and rabbits in his laboratory without using gloves. Then, as & result of constant use of a very strong disinfectant, his fingers developed cracks, and down again he went with fever. While thus infected he worked in his laboratory, observing himself as he might a guinea pig. ‘Tularemia was first noticed by med- ical scientists in this country in 1910. Numerous reports came from Utah and adjacent States of a peculiar hu- a Photographs by Washington Star Staff. | man ailment known as “rabbit fever” or “deer fly fever,” with many charac- teristics resembling typhoid, particu- larly in regard to the fever stage, which lasts from two weeks to a | month and sometimes disables a vic- | tim for as long as six months. Every person—six all told—who has worked in the tularemia investigation in the Washington laboratories has contracted the disease. All have re- covered, however. The work is now carried on by an immune army of workers, in a room shut off from the | rest of the laboratory and avoided as much 8s possible by those who have no official business there. Direct transmission from rabbits to man occurs only when the internal organs of the rabbit are handled, the investigators found. Cuts, scratches and other skin abrasions of the hands offer a portal of entry for the infec- tion when dressing an infected rab- bit. In addition, there is good evi- dence for believing that the bacterium | of tularemia is one of those rare or- ganisms which can pass through the unbroken human skin. Parrot fever is another puzzling malady of Nation-wide interest. Re- member the epidemic that swept the country back in ’29-’30? Because of the ailment’s rarity, its severity and the suddenness with which it struck, this new scourge gave tke entire coun- try a scare. New York City residents were particularly alarmed because the metropolis at-the time had something like 30,000 pet parrots. Records of the Health Service show that there were 74 places of infection which gave rise to 169 cases with 33 deaths from November 23, 1929, to May 7, 1930. Undoubtedly the epidemic would have been a hundredfold more serious had it not been for the vigilance of the finest men in the service. They suffered no iess than 16 laboratory in- fections with two deaths—but they quickly got the situation well under control. Immediately after an epidemic be- gan in Pittsburgh, in the Fall of 1929, several kinds of sick parrots were | dread disease. Straightway Dr. R. R. | Spencer, one of his colleagues, dash- ed around the East, persuading scores of victims to give up their blood, and bringing it back to Washington for use in making the new serum. ‘These important facts were also dis- covered about parrot fever by the Federal specialists: The disease, prop- erly termed psittacosis (from the Greek word for parrot) acts like a | complication of typhoid and pneu- monia, For this reason it often is | wrongly diagnosed by attending phy- sicians. Of South American origin, parrot fever is one of the most highly contagious ailments known, is dan- gerous and often fatal. The germs have been isolated in the marrow of the parrot's wing bones. Health investigators traced the | epidemic to a consignment of sick Amazon parrots exported from Brazil The only sure means of prevention |is to avoid contact with recently im- ported birds, especially if they appear to be ill. And what is the net result of this unheralded epic of self-sacrifice, this never-ending battle with the unseen agents of death? Oddly enough, the Federal microbe hunters have suc- ceeded in putting many of the micro- scopic enemies of human life to work in hindering their own efforts and de- stroying themselves. Numerous cures and preventives of the world’s most puzzling diseases have been developed from the causes thereof. Yes, the health heroes have actually found methods for making :he invisible conquerors conquer them- selves. Which, of course, is one of the greatest triumphs of all the ages. Plant Explorers Do Vital Work MONG the unsung Individuals who daily carry on important work which escapes popular attention are the plant explorers who search the whole world over for plants of such a nature that they will meet and over- come obstacles to production in this country, During the past year these men have centered to a large extent on drought-resistant plants and plants which will provide protection against erosion, both rain and wind. H. L. Westover and C. R. Enlow, two of the explorers, returned recently from a trip during which they collect- ed 1,800 lots of seeds of plants which may aid in solving some of the prob- lems of the drier areas of the United States. Most of the seed collections repre- sent grasses or legumes which form a thick turf close to the ground, en- abling them to bind the soil and hold it against the ravages of wind and water. Others represent shrubs whose root systems looked promising as eoil- binders. Seeds from a few trees also were brought back. Most of the seed lots came from plants that are edihle | by live stock, but this quality was not regarded as of principal importance in making selections. The explorers penetrated far into the foothills of some of the republics of Turkistan. On one occasion they visited the village of Ziddi, in the Gissar Mountains of Tajikstan. They were the first Americans to visit this | village, and only a week before the ' natives saw their first automobile. The villagers were so delighted they im- | mediately prepared a feast for their guests. Officials of the Soviet government gave the explorers every possible as- sistance. Botanical experts were able in almost every instance to give the Americans all the necessary informa- tion concerning the plants of the re- gions visited. This information made it possible to avoid plants which are poisonous or otherwise undesirable. | The officials of the various republics | supplied automobiles, horses and cam- | els to transport the exploration party | over Turkestan, sometimes referred to as Middle Asia. Turkish government officials likewise co-operated in every way. One of the most promising collec- tions is seed of a bunch grass, Aristida pennata, which grows in scattering clumps in the dry wind-swept sands of the Kara Kum Desert. It will take root in moving sand, and when the winds become too strong this grass through its ability to “land on its feet,” may be blown for considerable distances and take root where it lands. If it will grow in this country it should be extremely valuable in re- gious where there are sand dunes. Another unusual plant is Carex phy- soides, a perennial sedge used exten- sively for grazing in the Kara Kum Desert of Turkistan. This plant sel- |dom produces viable seed. and is, | therefore, propagated by root cuttings. | Prom the dry, rocky mountain slopes near Issyk Kul—the largest fresh-wa- | ter lake in Turkistan—Westover and | Enlow brought back two bunch grasses. | One of them, a species of Agropyron. is a relative of the crested wheat- grass which is winning favor rapidly in the Great Plains since its intro- duction a few years ago. The other a species of Hordeum, is a wild pe- rennial barley. Both of these iniro- ductions show promise for the Palouse country in the Pacific Northwest. S T Guard Brown Bears. THE brown bear population of the United States is none too great. In its native home, Admiralty Island, off Alaska, only 900 bears of all types, including the brown bear, exist. The 900 are divided into five different species. The Biological Survey has decided to adopt protective measures to pre- serve the bears and hereafter no hunting will be allowed beyond a kill no greater than the increase in bear population. The sale of the pelts is forbidden, and, outside of a very limited season, no bears may be killed except to pro- tect life. - The brown bear is the largest kncwor. American bear, specimens reaching a weight often as great as 1,600 pounds. Guide for Readers PART 4. Page. John Clagett Proctor’s Article on old Wash- “Those Were the Happy Days,” by Dick Mans- ad ...k - Books and Art....... “How High Can a Man News of the Theaters Musical Affairs..