The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-10-18
HEROES OF HEALTH
Scientists Of Uncle Sam's Medical Expedionary Force Dare Mysterious Forms Of Death To Halt Epdemics
By RODNEY DUTCHEB

0I &NFA<4*4 4& N4A@&*<4#
 (NEA Service Stan Corrcspondcnt)
 Washington, Oct 19-America thrilled in admiration as three scientists recently invited death from sleeping sickness at St Louis.
 Those three, members of the United States Public Health Ser vice, allowed themselves to be bit- ten by mosquitoes which had bitten victims of the dread encephalitis. Mosquitoes seemed the most likely carriers of the disease.
 Here was altruistic bravery at its best.
 But that's old stuff with the U. S. P. H. s. You seldom hear about it, but for decades the physicians and laboratory workers, of the or ganization have never hestitated to expose themselves or infect them selves with death in it's more mis- erable and mysterious forms.
 Some of them have died and many have lived to plunge into new experiments designed to make life safer for the rest of us.
 -DEATH-FTGHTERS-
 pr. Edward Francis has sur- vived tularemia, psittacosis, undu- lant fever and dengue fever during his 40 years of death-fightin
 Six U. $. F. H, s. men dead of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever be- fore pr. Roscoe R. Spencer jabbed discovered a preventive serum.
 Dr. Charles Armstrong lost his laboratory assistant and himself nearly deid before he licked the parrot fever (psittacosis) which frightened the nation three years ago. s-s
 Fantastic feats of scientific de- tective work are performed as these men and their colleagues isolate microbes, infect and disinfect animals and traveF into all sorts of places to study diseases first hand. SOLDIERS OF MEDICINE
 It's a mobile, quais military group and it's experts are ordered about like army officers for epi- demic work, investigation, research and constant exposure to the enemy.
 Fifteen doctors were sent to St. Louis against encephalitis. They took crates of guinea pigs, rats, monkeys, ferrets and rabbits from the Hygenic laboratory. Nine have been studying the parrot fever epidemiology-visiting houses and investigating each case intensively. Four, specialists in entomology. insect transmission, and the other two have experimented with animals in a laboratory.
 Among the 15 was Dr. Arm strong, the parrot fever man." The rest of this story is about Armstrong, a stocky, redrheaded, blue-eyed trouble shooter of AZ years.
 VETERAN OF SCIENCE
 Armstrong entered U. S. F. H. S.
 before the war and spent two years on a coast guard cutter in Trench waters. He studied and correlated cases of botulinus dur ripo olive interests tried to intimi- date them it was Armstrong who intfmidated them-with the facts.
 Tn 1920 he was after the bu- bonic plague in New Orleans and some Texas cities. Then he re- turned to the laboratory here. A man of keen, analytical mind, he was assigned to many problems. One was an outbreak of post-yac- cination lockjaw. After personally visiting each of 100 cases in order to trace every fact. Armstrong called in manufacturer Of vac- cination shields and told him how the shields should be made to guar antee that there. wouldn't be any more such cases.
 The most extensive outbreak of parrot fever in this country began | at Baltimore in 1929. People be- gan to die and everyone remem- bers the hysteria of that period. 1 The mortally rate was about 20 l per cent and at least 33 victims I succumbed to 1t. Pslttacosis at l that time was a most mysterious | rnalady.
 ANXIOUS INQUIRIES ]. Telegrams for information piled up at U. s. F. H. s. Armstrong was | assigned to nd out two things:
 How was parrot fever spread?
 How should it be treated?
 He went to Baltimore and brought back a dead parrot. bent 1 first on seeing whether the disease l could ba transmitted to other birds | and animals. Lots of people, includ- ing some authorities, were denying l that anyone was catching anything 1 from parrots.
 Wearing rubber gloves. Arm- strong and his. laboratory assist | ant, H. B. Anderson, mashed up the dead parrot, stewed 1t and shot ]