The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-05-08
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFOR M A TON
Blu R. Al
FREDERIC ]. HASK1N. Director,
THE. FEDERAL GERM FACTORY.
Washington, D. c.


breeding, raising and packing for
shipment of high-grade disease germs
is a wartime industry which has not
attracted much public attention. but
is nevertheless of the first Importance
1t is carried on here in washington
at the laboratory of the Army Medical
school, which is now producing MIL
lions of typhoid germs every day.
No, these germs are not Tor the
Germans; there is no frightfulness in
volved. They are all used for making
the vaccines with which every Amer
lean fighting man must be 1noculated
against typhoid and two sub-species
of that disease
The typhoid baciIli which are bred
for the use of the American army are
the very best in existence. They be-
long to an old English family, having
been isolated by the British army from
case of typhoid at Netley, England,
seventeen years ago. These bacilli
are known as the Rawlings strain"
Rawlings being the name of the man
from whom the germs were taken,
and who achieved fame and possibly
immortality in this unique manner.
For the Rawlings bacilli make better
vaccine than any other typhoid germs
in the world, and a thorobred Rawl-
ingS bacillus is an aristrocart among
germs and highly priced.
The laboratory of the army medical
vaccine used by the United States
army. navy and marine corps. 1t also
manufactures two kinds of para
typhoid vaccines, which are now COM
bined with the typhoid injection CIV
| en- to every American soldier and
sailor.
Para-typhoid is a disease so much
! resembling typhoid fever that for
| long time the two were confused.
| During the American occupation of
- NJ -
| demic of para-typhoid, and in 1915 an
| epidemic of the same disease occurred
among the British troops in Flanders.
| 1t was discovered that two distinct
germs were responsible for para
| typhoid-for convenience designated
| Para AZ and Para B"-and that
the familiar typhoid germ had moth
| ing to do with it.
Consequently, an incubation against
| the typhoid germ does. not prevent a
man from contracting para-typhoid.
Separate vaccines, therefore. must be
prepared. The para-typhoid vaccines
now made by the laboratory of the
army medical school are based on
| strains of Para AZ and Para b.
germs taken both from American and
| English cases. And the American SOL
| der is now inoculated with three dis
| ti1ct kinds of germs against two diff
| ferent diseases-all in one vaccine
fluid.
] AS might be supposed, the manu-
| facture of such a vaccine fluid is a
| &C implicated process, and, even to the
| unscientific, an extremely interesting
| one. 1t represents one of mans great
| est achievements in the control of
nature-an achievement no less spec
| tacular than his control of fire. For
here in this hot, stuffy laboratory,
| with its shelves of glass tubes and
bottles, its sterilizing ovens and its
tstorage refrigerators, it's copper ket-
ties and Queerly shaped utensils and
its curious doors. millions of the most
4 dangerous germs known to man are
calmly bred, destroyed and embalmed
and turned into a preventive of the
| very disease they cause.
The germs are propagated from the
original strains on a gelatinous sub
stance made from agar-agar, which
is a japanese seaweed imported from
Japan for this express purpose. They
are allowed to remain on this SUBJ
stance for an incubation period OF
| twenty-four hours. Then they are
| washed off in a liquid known as
| broth" and in this broth solution
they are applied to the surfaces of
numerous glass TASKS which have also
| been swabbed with agar-agar.
These TASKS are stored in neat
piles in small room that looks very
much like kitchen pantry, but which
is kept at the uncomfortable tempera-
ture of a hundred degrees or more.
Without the aid of a microscope the
/ presence of the germs on these TASKS
is hard to discover. By holding a
serm-covered flask and then an
empty flask up to the light you can
distinguish a slight difference, but it
is Merry slight.
A Up to this point the process has
been conducted in rooms of an ex-
tremely high temperature and an
even greater humidity. The doors
and windows are tightly sealed, and
the laboratory workers make as few
and as slow movements as possible sc
as to prevent a circulation of air. The
thermometer which hangs on the wall
is always lowering around a hundred
degrees Fahrenheit. and on at least
| one occasion 1t has registered a clear
124 degrees. 1t is not surprising
therefore, that men sometimes col
| lapse IN the midst of the process
especially when they must stay with
l. for n continuous stretch of twenty.
, four hours.
Multiplication takes place on such
q rapid scale among bacteria that
after another short period of incuba-
ton billions of germs are contained
, i'll the glass TASKS These are washed
, eff in salt solution, which is Their
heated to So degrees Centigradt
G27.4 degrees F.). This kills large
( HCHlDeT Ol the DdCllll, anu Tic dOQl'
, ton of u per cent of tri-cresol, G
ccal-tar product, kills the rest o.
: them, 1T the same time acting~as e
l preservative.
Now test culture is made to bt
sure that no foreign organism has ap
peared. Psychological tests are mad
= beth in air and in a vacuum. since
Y there ara certain dangerous germ
that will incubate in a vacuum bu
not when exposed to the air. 1
these tests prove satisfactory. furthe
4 tests on a mouse. a guinea pig and
Y ra bbit are made, to determine various
: points. If the vaccine contains to,
much tri-cresol. for example, tn
4 mouse will be killed: if it contain
tetanus germs, both the mouse ant
q guinea pig will be killed. while tn
rabbit acts as an exact substitute 70
human experiment. 1t is the tina