Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-31
Dr.. w. T. Harrison Contracts
MaIady While Making.
Experiments.
MANNER OF INFECTION
UNKNOWN TO PHYSICIANS
Taken to Same Ward Where Victim
He Was Aiding Is Being
Treated.
Undulant fever, called the "slipperiest

Undulant fever, called the "slipperiest
OF diseases" has put its mark on DR.
w. T. Harrison. officer of the United
States Public Health Service, who is the
fifth worker In the hygienic laboratory
here to fall victim to the disease.
Known also as Malta fever, the
malady long has been considered par
ticularly dangerous to laboratory work
ers. The victims suffer from high tenn
perature, anaemia, pain and swelling in
the joints, and neuritis. The illness
continues intermittently for as long as
five years.
The microbes of the dread fever at
tackled DR.. Harrison while he was work.
ing with the blood of DR.. Edward
Francis, the fourth worker to suffer
from it. Now both are in the same
ward in the Naval Hospital, and the
work of the Public Health Service in
tracing the disease to extinction is
necessarily held up.
Other Casualties.
Other casualties on this battlefront
of science were DR.. G. G. Lake and B. T.
Sockrider. laboratory assistant. The
case of Miss Alice c. Evans, another
Government bacteriologist, led directly
to the experience OF DR.. Francis and
Dr. Harrison.
Undulant fever was discovered in the
Island of Malta. and thus was called
malta fever. For long time 1t was a
Scourge among the British soldiers in
Mediterranean stations, until the dis
covery was made that the disease was
transmitted through milk from infected
goats, which showed no evidence Of dis
case.
In the United States, malta fever has
hapY1 kY1nu,Y0 ciYNo ions Tn that
nurse who had been attending soldiers
in Washington contracted a disease
diagnosed as malta fever by Col.
Charles F. Craig.
Col. Craig at the time ventured the
opinion that malta fever was not such a
rarity in this country as generally be-
lieved. Many of the doubtful cases of
typhoid in the warmer portions Of the
United States. he said. were most prob
ably instances OF infection with the or
ganism Of malta fever.
Opinion Confirmed.
This was startling. Further observa-
tions, however, confirmed the opinion of
Dr. Craig. DR.. Lake found IS cases in
Arizona. traceable to goats milk. But
before he could finish his expedition he
fell victim before the enemy microbes.
Miss Evans believed she became in
the dangerous germs received in brok-
en- vial from Tunis five years ago. For
many months she was in hospital at
Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore, as a
working patient" She pluckily con-
tinued her work, preparing manuscript
and reading literature on the subject,
but at last she had to give up.
DR.. Francis took up the work. His
work on tularaemia. or rabbit fever"
IS internationally known. Having sufs
fered from tularaemia, he knew the
dangers of the new foe, but for months
he worked with highly dangerous mate
rial. infected tissues and cultures, taken
mostly from ginea pigs, until one day
he, too, was stricken with a fever that
was quickly diagnosed as the dreaded
undulant fever.
Progress of Disease Studied.
DR.. Francis studied the progress of
the disease as the germs multiplied with
geometrical progression in his body,
and consulted with his attending ply
sicians at the Naval Hospital in their
investigation. One of the first things
done was to take a sample of his blood.
It was then up to somebody in the
hygienic laboratory to make a blood
culture.
DR.. Harrison volunteered. Highly
skilled as bacteriologist, he took every
precaution known in drawing the blood
from his colleague and succeeded in
breeding the germs through successive
generations. But he was no luckier
than his predecessors. One day he
went down before fever and headache
and shortly was in DR.. Francis ward
at the hospital.
How he became infected. no one
knows. He has what the Public Health
Service cautiously calls moderately
severe attack" of this more or less
mysterious disease. The reason for the
severity" is that he was attacked by
a particularly potent type of germ.