The Washington times., 1935-11-23
Side
Of the
News
By EdWin G. Hill
MARTYRS TO SCIENCE

MARTYRS TO SCIENCE
I wonder how many eyes probed
beyond the news from Ethiopia
and from the football fields Of
America to find these two obscure
items:
"Dr. Jose Lemose is dead Of a
typhus Infection. The end came
only a few days after that of his
assistant, DR.. Edison Souza Dan.
tas. These young bacteriologistS
had been engaged in research
work in Sac Paulo, Brazil, endeav-
oring to find new methods Of
fighting typhus. They had inocu-
lated ticks and guinea pigs with
the typhus virus. Their deaths
are attributed to bites from the
ticks"
"Dr. Folla E. Dyer lies i'll in the
Naval Hospital in Washington,
suffering from a streptococcus in.
fection of the face. The doctor,
while engaged in laboratory re.
search, accidentally struck his
nose against the cage of guinea
pig. He was engaged at the time
in transferring a disease strain
from the guinea pig to another
animal. The door made a slight
scratch on the doctors nose, and
the germ entered his system"
Three years ago Dyer was down
With typhuS and liVeG to go back
to the front line in the war against
disease. A tall, brown-eyed, silver.
haired man Of 40, he is one of the
valiant group which makes up the
United States Public Health Ser.
vice. Another veteran, DR.. Herman
E. Hasseltine, left a San Fran.
cisco Hospital a few weeks ago to
take charge of the leper colony at
Carville, Louisiana. He has Just
recovered from psittacosis, the
dread parrot fever, the second
time he was stricken with it in
five years.
TYPHUS GERMS
DR.. Dyer, assistant director Of
the Public Health Service, started
out as a classical scholar and not
until he was 20 did he take his
M. D. at the University of Texas.
One of his first cases, an emerg-
ency operation by the light of an
oil lamp, turned him from general
practice to the dangers of the lab.
oratory. It was Dyer who proved
that rat fleaS carried the typhus
germ.
TyphuS has been epidemic for
centuries in all the countries of
Europe. 1t decimated the French
forces in the Crimean war, and
$4,000 persons, including 10000
Austrian prisoner, died of typhuS
in Serbia in 1914, 1915. DR.. Dyer
went through the IA days of the
agonies Of the disease in 1882.
On the roll Of the honored dead
Of the Public Health Service, no
name is brighter than that of DR..
Joseph Goldberger. His career
sums UP the adventure and ex.
treme danger which is the every
day existence of his colleagues.
Goldberger was the conqueror of
peuagra, that mysterious nutri-
tional malady which took a toll
Of thousands Of lives between the
time Of its discovery in this country
in 1908 and his vitamine PIP, per-
fected about Is years later.
Goldberger, believing the dis
ease was a result of faulty diet,
fed a group of convicts in MissiS-
Sippi a diet of corn, bread and
bacon, and they developed pella.
gra. Then Goldberger worked out
the preventive in a substance OBJ
tanned from dried yeast.
Three times in his career Gold
berger was stricken as a result of
his contact with disease, and he
died in 1929 of an ailment which
his fellow doctors could n o t
classify.
GAMBLE WITH DEATH
DR.. r. r. Spencer, of the service,
was the hero in the fight against
the Rocky Mountain spotted fever,
a fatal disease transmitted by
| G4Cho. IL 4LoO HCC14 1Ou44O largely
in Montana, and the best the
victim could hope for was that
he would be alive after seven days.
About one out Of five of the
victims was lucky enough to pass
through the week and get up
again. There is no cure, as yet,
but there is a vaccine made from
ground-up infected ticks.
DR.. Spencer tried this vaccine
first on himself and, having lived
six months with no ill effects, his
. associate. r. R. Parker, followed
suit. They gambled with death
and won, and today the shepherd
ers in the Rockey Mountain States
, are no longer to die like flies in an
epidemic of the spotted fever.
The two young BrazilianS, broth
erS in arms, have gone on to join
the irnmortals, Goldberger, Rick
etts, Noguchi and the scores OF
others who have risked and lost
their lives that others may live
+. The Dyers and the Hasseltines
carry on, the soldiers who fight
in the warfare of science for hlI.