The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 30, 1898, Page 20

THE SA F o 0 RANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1898. D 4 -~ Last Friday a bark from Hongkong arrived at the Golden Gate with a report that twoof the crew had died of the dreaded bubonic plague on the voyage. terrible disease. e (it Honeemr/ 2% 77 947 : a farmer watches over his crops, and should the contents of a tube show ‘signs of dying all the resources of sci- ence and the tender care of a watchful guardian are brought to bear, in order to sustain life. Sometimes the result is a success, but more frequently it is a failure, It is a good deal more difficult to rear the germs of cholera than it is to rear chickens. Germs are delicate and require the most careful attention to | keep them alive, in spite of the fact | that they are so difficult to kill when | they spread among the population and ybes ‘of the which sue has raged period- and. Europe f CE walke and t of a x 3 Superstitic andering Jew, Savior pro- |q nouncec Thou shall’ go on till I re s with the plague. The 1 is shc en in the act of carrying the dead to bu- rial are stricken, fall and themsélves are of the dead There is no scourge to compare with it in horror, when It passes through the half starved, huddled -up peoples of India. is experl- mer Dr. - Muller went to India and ed it, esc ing all the dangers. Carefully pro- tected cultures of the different microbes accompanying the d brought back to Vienna, wk cilities are found for ing them than in npting to isolate the bubonic crobe he -himself became in- Just ‘how this occurred is a t it was not- recognized that | scientist was suffering with the plague. His doctors thought some cas- | | | ual iliness only affected him. His as- sistant, Dr. Barisch, attended hiia. B sides the doctor, there were two nurses and one all | and other attendant. They went. from the sick man’s without precaution for two | then another. Precautions against i fection were at’ once-begun, but even then no one suspected the truth, till | Professor Baris died. | eant. Mrs. Muller had ut had returned to her t about among her friends. Other nurses and attendants | did the same. | ‘When > men had died Vienna be- | came alarmed. The plague was in! !hei(xj‘ midst, and no known remedy ex- istel ! Prevention was their only hope. ery one who was known to have osed was compelled to go into ed building connected. with the v perso. resisted. AITE and forc ated house. They isters of Charity and university. They were promptly bly put into the isol are attended by by Dr. Pooch, who volunteered for the servic All the gick and those who are suspected of being infected witn robes are inclosed in the o, , which is efully guarded a;r:rgl qL ntined. rope 18- stretched around the house and guards placed prevent any one approaching or ing the place. Provisions are furnished by maans of | baskets on p 's. When Dr. Muller for the sick he wrote his prescription and pasted it on to the window glass, so that those outside could read it. The hodies of the dead are wrappe in sheets soaked In disinfeotants hra én cremated. Every couid - be infected is earefully burr ‘When Dr. Muiler fell ill he stru his best against the diseass. He kept on his feet attending the others and | watching and noting the symptoms and effects of the remedles. He kept in communication with the other physi- ! cians of the Vienna University .by means of a telephone. Consultations | were held and every change noted. He | watched his own symptoms and wrote | them down in his diary. He saw four others die and wrote the details at length. At last fever and delirflum overcame to NING BACTERIA CULTURES FOR THE GOVERN.‘ HE LABORATORY AT ANGEL ISLAND. contracted the so died. There is | as the populace fears | locked a detached ilding, carefully guarded, | so to prevent any of the in Liden, the lly raised have worst is over. | ver finished the history of for death c and some rite the end. Dr. Porch the duty. Nothing but e and humanity They gave their remedy to prevent enna is trembling cannot be confined to off on the college » are walt- , but there Wheth )tk which > world. ber 26.—Dr. ding the vi plague in Vie Herr Hegger, has develope gave bubonic with ptoms of the N ys of scientific investi- | gation dead £ tled up in nearly all th 8 of the world. Nor is San Francisco | behind a of the othe: is re- | spect. In the various laboratories about town there germs enough to | start a plague ir hours and to t our big city into a inside of a week. ms are harmiless as long | as they do not come in contact with the vital organs of human belngs. The owners of the germs handle them con- stantly, and it might be said that they live among them. They watch over el house But the g | | | | mearly all kinds of deadly germs are | of such local diseases | largest in the country. | laboratory | and the top s become a plague. There are about six large laboratories in and around San Francisco where always on hand. The most important of these, and the best supplied with deadly germs, is the one on Angel Isl- and, In charge of Dr. Rosenau of the Government quarantine station. Dr. Ernest Pillsbury has a laboratory of his own on Scott and Pine streets that is well supplied with the germs as under extra- ordinary circumstances might become epidemic. His collection of the ba- cillus of tuberculosis is perhaps the Dr. Mauser on Bush street has a good | well supplied with germs. The principal medical colleges have a | certain quantity of germs on hand in their laboratories, and, besides, there | are a few scientific experimenters with away where it is almost impossible to find them. It might be thought to be an easy matter to obtain and take care of | germs of any kind. But such is nnti | laboratories full of germs, hidden | | | the case. To obtain a tiny tube of the germs of Asiatic cholera during the | time that disease was last raging in | the Orient took considerable corre- | spondence and money on the part of | osenau of the Government quar- station. And had it not been | his position it is hardly possible | that he could have succeeded in ob- taining them. When the tube did come it was packed in a piece of bamboo and cov- ered with all sorts of figures and labels aled with a big red seal bearing the arms of the Chinese Em. pire. The doctor in China who was good enough to send the germs also sent a brief account of the efforts he was put to in order to obtain them, and also the trouble he was put to be- fore the Chinese officials would consent to their being sent out of the country. | In the end they weré brought here by | { a surgeon of one of the Pacific Malil | steamships who appreclated the impor- tance of having them in this country. Dr. Rosenau's laboratory on Angel Island is in a tiny building all by it- | self. When you look into the room you see only a number of shelves covered | with bottles of various es, a couple | of microscopes and several small cop- | per boxes that look something like the | ovens that are used on oil cooking | stoves. They are built on the same | principle and are in reality incubators for the hatching and rearing of germs of all kinds. Open the door and look In. There are | self over and over again, so that within QUARANTINED "SocToR COMMUNICATING HIS MESSAGES THROUGH LA\ GLASS PARTITION. . ) O S e e S R RS R R R o Twenty=five millions of people, it is estimated, + have fallen under the blow of ¢“the black death,”’ : the majority of whom were counted among the + + + dead during the existen : epidemics—those which + 1665, Copenhagen in 1 + Bulgaria in 1828-29, Egypt in 1844, among the 1 Arabs of North Africa in 1857, Mesopotamla in + 1857, and in Persian Kurdistan in 1871. D R R R R numbers of glass tubes about half an, inch thick and six inches long. In the | end of each tube is a small plug of cot- ton. Inside the tubes can be seen a | brownish substance, and in some in- stances there is a tiny light-colored line running down into the This is a colony of germs. billions of the tiny organisms in each tubes. it enough looking things. They | can be handled with impunity, and providing there are no sores on your | skin you can even rub the substance | on any part of your body and no harm | will come, providing it is soon washed | off. But should there be even the small- | est kind of a sore spot the germ that | was in the tube will reprocuce itself | within a short time and reproduce it- twenty-four hours you will be sick. | See this tiny glass tube? As inno- | cent looking as a thermometer. But | take it out and spill it into ‘the Spring Valley reservoir on a warm day and a | week later an angel of death will hover over San Francisco, for the tube is filled with the germs of the deadly black plague. To spill the tube into | the bay would not cause harm, I)Ev‘ cause the water is so cold the germs could not propagate there. However, even such an act would contain an element of danger, for the germs might lie dormant for years until thev washed up into some of the fresh water marshes, where they would reproduce themselves and start out on a mission : ] of death. ! Although the tiny light streak in the | tube of gelatine represents micro-or- | ganisms, the organisms themselves cannot be seen except with the ost powerful microscope. A tiny speck of the poisonous matter taken from the | tube on the end of a piece of-platinum | wire and spread on a glass slide will, when properly stained and fixed and | put under the microscope, reveal thou- | sands of tiny threadlike objects. | These are the deadly bacilli, and the numbers of them in the tube can only | be vaguely surmised, when it is con- | sidered that only the millionth part of | the contents of the tube has been picked up on the wire. Dr. Ernest Pillsbu has at present a splendid eolony of typhoid fever germs ‘ in his laboratory. These germs are | somewhat larger than most of the other | deadly germs and also very active. By taking a tiny speck of the poisonous | 712, Marseilles in 1720, I Moscow in 1771, Malta in 1813, Selecia in 1819, e. | into balls and straighten | nize it should he meet it in his practice. | pearance in Honolulu The vessel was immediately ordered into quarantine at Angel Island, and every precaution will be taken to stamp out every trace of the All Southerr: Europe is aroused over the deaths in Vienna of the physicians who were experimenting with the bacilli of the scourge. ® ce of less than a dozen occurred at London in T L e e R R R R e e fluid out of a culture tube, putting it into a drop of staining fluid and plac- ng it under the microscope the deadly germs can be seen-in motion. Thous- ands and tho nds of them roll and tumble about. They coil themselves up out again. There are so many of them as to be bewildering to look at. Such a quiver- ing mass can only be likened to a Yox of worms. But the quivering lasts only a few moments. The staining fluid and the cold are deadly to the microbes. radually they be-ome quiet, then give a few convulsive wriggles and lie still. Of what use is all this dangerous ex- perimenting with germs? Principally for education. If a physician does not know what the germ of a certain deadly disease looks like he will not be able to recog- Nor will he be able to find it if he does not experiment and become thoroughly familiar with the. manipulation neces- sary to bring the microbe into sight. The reasons for breeding it are prin- cipally to have it on hand for experi- mental purposes. The exchanging of microbes 1s one of the courtesies of the medical profession. | Should a new disease make its ap- the physisians | down there would consider it thelr duty to send the germs of it, should they be able to find them, to Dr. Rosenau, so that he could recognize the disease in case it should appear at this port. R Dr. Vowinkle, whose office is at Van Ness avenue and Sutter street, studied at the Unive ty of Berlin when Dr. | Koch was making his experiments in the same way as Dr. Barisch was doing in Vienna. Dr. Koch, 1.wever, was more fortunate. He has positively dis- covered one microbe—that of tubercu- losis. He, too, went to India, as did | Dr. Barisch, and brought home germs or cultures of Asiatic cholera to study in his home laboratory. ‘When seen at his office Dr. Vowinkle showed great interest in t.is study of germs.. He sald: “If sclence can pre- vent the spread of diseases whi¢h have devastated whole continents no task can be too great to be attempted. Dr. Koch was one of the first (o investigate on these lines. He started with the theory that contagious or Infectious diseases "are caused each by its own germ or microbe. Medical sclence was | then little but theory. @ [ONoJoJoXCRCROoRoXOROROJORONORORS FADLY BACILLI OF THE “BLACK PLAGUE” overcone SCIENTISTS IN VIENN JQYoYoYoYcoYoRoYoYoYoXoYoToYoRoYolelofofoloRoofol e olofolOichY) Plague=-Stricken Ship Arrives A @ ® = CO, at San Francis = ] IN VIENNA WH STRICKEN PATIENT: BACILLUS OF CHOLERA He went to work to find the bacilli of tuberculosis. ‘What seems most simple now he had to think out for himself, and each step was made onlv after much labor and many failures. “He had many assistants in his laboratory. I was cne. If one grants that specific microbes cause specific diseases, then the first thing to do is to find the microbe. Dr. Koeh found that a certain aniline dye colored the different microbes differently. He placed upon a glass microscopic slide a tiny speck of sputum from a man who indisputably was suffering from 000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 Exhorter Simpson Raised $113,000 During One Service. Women Jore dewels From Their AST Sunday the Rev. Albert B. Simpson raised $113,000 his morning and evening serv All New York is marvelin over the unparalleled feat. His other noted collections were: October 11, 1896, at Carnegie Hall, $112,000; Au- gust 9, 1896, at Old Orchard, Me., $101,- 500; October 17, 1898, at Carnegle Hall, $100,000; October 17, 1895, at Carnegie Hall, $80,000. Here is more than half a million of dollars raised by one clergyman for his own speclal church missionary work throughout the world. Did you ever try to raise $10,000 for any cause? Did you ever try to borrow $5000 on good security? A college presi- dent, accompanied by a United States senator, a couple of Congressmen and influential members of the Union League, wrestled with the Vanderbilts, through Chauncey M. Depew, one m-rning for a subscription to a certain great institution of national renown and considered themselves fortunate in -uring a signature for $1000. TAK NO CREDIT FOR HIS WORK Said Dr. Simpson yesterday in reply to inquiries: “I take no particular credit for what I have done, I prefer to remain in the background and con- tinue pushing on my work. Our suc- cess is only the answer to sincere and earnest prayer. We believe in faith— the faith of the apostles—yet knowing that faith without works is dead. “I simply began an evangelistic movement in 1881 to reach the masses. Our church, in West Thirteenth street, was a successful Presbyterian. church, having a good attendance and a thou- sand members in the Sunday-school. But, like most of the fairly representa- tive churches of the country, we failed to reach the non-church going masses. “I was born in Prince Edward Is- land, educated in Toronto, at the Uni- versity, and Knox College, a Presby- terian Institution, where I was grad- uated. I began preaching in Louis- ville, Ky., about twenty-six years ago. In 1880 I came to New York, and after s. Dresses and Emptied Jheir Purses in Response to His Fervid Appeals, in Seven Years for Church Work. two years of what was called success- ful work sixteen years ago I left my pastorate in the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church, the church bulilt for the Rev. Dr. Burchard, of ‘Rum, Romanism and Rebellion’ fame. I had no quarrel with my cengregation. I left simply because I had determined to de- Vvote my life to reaching the unchurched masses of New York City. I knew that half a million of our citizens were not church members and were practically deprived of the right of the Gospel. “My aim was to stir them up to a sensz2 of their responsibility, to a rec- ognition of thelr opportunities, but through no sectarian medium. “My first essay was in a house in Thirteenth street, a few doors away from my pastorate. I had long felt that it was the Lord’s will I should take that house and make it the center of some important work for him. This proved the first resting place of the lit- tle flock that néw represent the Chris- tian and Missionary Alliance of the New and Old Worlds. “So great was the success of the movement that in 1881 I was enabled to secure the Academy of Music, and later Abbey’'s old Park Theater, corner of Broadway and Twenty-first street, which was afterward destroyed by fire. My congregation grew, and finally we were enabled to rent what came to be known as the Old Gospel Tabernacle, in W ‘T'wenty-third street. ‘At that time It was in a dilapidated condition. It had originally been erect- ed as the church edifice of our reformed congregations. Then it became suc- cessively a stablc and an armory. It passed into the ownership of a syndi- cate, whereof tlLe president was the late Mr. Darling of the Fifth-avenue Hotel. ‘“The hearts of a number of us were set upon this old building, chiefly on account of its admirable location, in the very center of the city. We waited upon Mr. Darling and offered to lease the building for church purposes. We were not surprised thdt he favored our application, for the matter had been made a subject of special prayer on the part of our little flock, and many of us had recelved the assurance from the Lord that we should have this building for his work. “A little later we were suddenly in- formed by Mr. Darling that he had an offer from a syndicate of wealthy men of $15,000 a year for fifteen years for this building, for a theater in which to produce 'The Passion Play,’ a carica- ture of the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. “Mr. Darling had accepted the propo- sition of these parties in the interest of his partners, and so he informed us that he would be unable, as he had ex- pected, to rent us, the property. “Then we began to pray for light, and in the end found tnat it was a great benefit to us that our first arrangement was not consummated. “God in his providence allowed the Morse syndicate to make the necessary repairs, which cost from $50,000 to $75,- 000, before the structure could be used for public services. ““When they had secured the building and put it in good shape the Morse people offered us the use of the the- ater for our Sunday meetings. I de- clined, however, to have anything to do with it under the circumstances, and told the management that we Would get possession in due time. And it soon became true. When Morse failed it was leased to us with all the improvements for a term of six years at $3000 a year. “I have no commentary to maks, but simply state the fact as it is—that on the night after we took possession Salmi Morse committed suicide, and the man who was associated with him in the Passion Play was burned out in Brocklyn on that same night. “A year or two passed and we then determined to purchase a building for ourselves instead of leasing one. - Our cholce fell upon the large and hand- gome buflding at the corner of Madison avenue and Forty-fifth street, now the site of the Manhattan Athletic Club. “Here we remained several years, do- {r’:g evangellstic work for all denomina- ons. ‘‘So you see we have prosnered, de- spite temporary disappointments and opposition. Men of ail denominations have joined us. Dr. Wilson, my asso- He Has Raised $1,022,000 clate, comes from St. George's, where he labored with Dr. Rainsford, and I think" he has found the work a labor of love and thanksgiving.” In addition to the Tabernacle Church, in Eighth avenue and Forty-fourth street, there is a large educational in- stitution and publishing concern at Ny- ack. It is handsomely situated at South Nyack, on a commanding eminence overlooking the Hudson. The grounds \comprise seventy agres of choice land, with groves, in which a tabernacle is to be erected. Accommodations have been provided for nearly three hundred stu- dents. In addition to the officers of the or- genization there is a board of man- agers, twenty-four members, including the Rev. Dr. Henry Wilson, chairman, with ten or fifteen clergymen, includ- ing Dr. Simpson and the Rev. Stephen Merritt, the theological undertaker, who buried General Grant. It has been said that no reports or accounting of the expenditures of the funds spent have been made. This is an error. Regular reports by the treasurer are presented at each an- nual meeting and duly published. The following is a summary of financial re- ports for the various flelds during the last seven years: 1302.93. 1898. Total, China Swedish Mission....517,3290 §12,239 $79,30s China, Centrel and So ern Missions 10.063 22,601 117,746 Japan Mission. 2,241 1,645 15,0 India Mission ,275 22,879 123,097 Africa, Soudan Mission.... 10,893 7.007 54,506 Africa, Congo Mission..... 12,606 18,932 116,289 Palestine Miselon... 520 2,620 12,023 Hayti and San Domingo Mission - 1,762 08 7,505 South Am iss 2,023 10,164 30,342 N. Y. Missionary Training Institute & 16,004 16,432 95,89 The missionary field embraces Cen- tral China, with about 50 missionaries; Northern China, 7 missionaries; Southern China, 20 missionaries; Thi- bet, 8 or 10 missionaries; Japan, 12 missionaries. Africa: The Congo dis- trict, 46 missionarles; the Soudan, 25 missionaries; India, 65 missionaries; South America, 30 missionaries; Pales- ;u:iel, lzzmlulonarlee; Arabla, 1; West ndles, 3. .upe of Asiatic cholera germs packed in a piece of bamboo and sealed with the seal of the Chinese Empire, No. 2—Tube of culture medium an hour after being infected with disease germs. No. 2—Tube of culture medium six days after being infected with disease germs. tuberculosis. Then he fhid another very thin glass plate over it and smeared both plates to get the sputum spread out véry thin. The top plate | was then pulled off. “Hermetically sealed tubes of steril- ized gelatine are used to grow the germs. He prepares three tubes, melt- ing the gelatine in each. Next he uses a fine platinum wire which has just béen .heated red hot in a flame and cooled to kill any foreign germs. This wire he dips in sputum and takes up only a dot of it and puts it into the first tube of melted gelatine. He shakes the tube and with another clean wire dips out as much gelatine as will stick to its point. This is put into the second tube. Then from the second to the third in the same way, and all the tubes are sealed and laid away in a warm place. In forty-eight hours the gelatine is melted in the last tube and poured on to a glass plate which is made very cold on a block of ice, This makes a thin layer of coagulated gelatine, and on the surface you can see spots. These spots are colonies of microbes." Dr. Parent, in speaking of the experi- ments with the bubonic plague in Vi- enna, sald: “There s very little known as yet by science of bubonic plague. I suppose it is partly because the dis- ease is in India and so far away from any great medical schools. Probably a stronger reason is that the disease is so.virulent and so much dreaded that most doctors let it alone. Those who have studied it have usually gone to India, as did the professors of Vi- enna.” “Is it particularly virulent?" ‘“Yes. Maybe more virulent than any known disease, though why it is so we do not know. The bubonic plague is always more or less prevalent around Bombay and Calcutta. It is like lep- rogy—It does not .thrive out of its own natural surroundings.” THE REV. A, B. SIMPSON, President and General Superintendent of the Christian and Missichary Alliance.