Evening star., 1937-03-28


and in monkeys. He had brought in
ticks from horses, COWS, rabbits,
bushes and sagebrush that might be
infected in nature, and he had proved
the source of infection in laboratory
experiments later.
Ricketts, survived these experiments
only to succumb later to typhus in
Mexico, where he had gone to aid in
the fight against an epidemic Of that
disease. But he left valuable informa-
ton upon which Spencer and Parker
could base their initial experiments.
1t was Spencer's job to find something
that would keep people from dying
of the disease.
NcCLINTIC had tried hopelessly to
exterminate the rodents of the
valley in an effort to eliminate tick
hosts. The State tried to get cattle
men to dip their cattle and horses.
But the ticks were too many for such
efforts as these And McClintic died,
meanwhile, Of the fever, just as
McCray, working on a serum died soon
after At the Rockefeller Institute,
a Japanese helper, studying the pos
sibility of vaccine, also passed away
as result of his work.
Parker'S idea was to find just what
kind of a rodent harbored the death
dealing virus and transmitted it to
ticks. 1t looked like an impossible
assignment in locality overrun with
ri hut viii, nt 6n1r,prS
Henry Cowan and Salisbury, Parker
started out for the hills, While Spen-
Ger set to work in the laboratory.
Dragging pieces of white outing fam
mel along the bushes and brush,
Parker and Salisbury made their
way through the canyons, collecting
ticks just stirring from their VIM
ter's sleep They filed pill boxes
with the ticks, and every night when
they returned from the hills and val
leys they examined each other for any
that might be clinging to their flesh.
Spencer's job was to test all these
crawling ticks for Rocky Mountain
spotted fever At first he decided to
fasten the ticks upon the shaved sur
face of guinea pig and tape them
down with adhesive tape, letting
them feed and observing if the ami
NAL came down with the fever after
such innoculation. But he soon dis
carded this method for a much quicker
one
He conceived the idea of maShing
up the ticks and injecting them un-
der the skin Of the experimental
guinea pigs, He did this to more than
100 guinea pigs. Nothing happened.
Not one of the inoculated animals
showed so much as a rise in tempera-
ture.
Spencer had been keeping virus of
the disease alive in guinea pigs, run
ming the fever virus through live
animals-a hot" virus, the scientific
G-men call it. Now he experimental
further. He shot some of the hot"
and deadly virus into guinea pigs
which had been inoculated, without
results, with the mashed ticks. In
every instance these guinea pigs were
immune from the effects of the virus,
while guinea pigs which had not re-
ceived injections of mashed ticks came
down with the disease when similarly
treated.
Some of the ticks brought in by
Parker, CoWan and Salisbury were
put away, in their pill boxes, in re-
frigerator, each lot labeled, and the
men sought for some other angle of
attack. Then one day Cowan came
into the laboratory with huge noun
tain goat, and he and a laboratory
helper sat down to the task of
plucking ticks off the animal. They
took more than a thousand from that
goat. Unlike the fat, starved wood
ticks they had tagged from the
bushes. these ticks were engorged
with the warm blood Of the goat, and
Parker and Spencer decided to test
this batch to see what happened
Spencer mashed the engorged ticks
as he had mashed the fiat ones and
shot them into the skins of guinea
pigs. But whereas the other guinea
pigs, inoculated with the fiat ticks,
had experienced no III effects. those
inoculated with engorged ticks came
down with temperature of l05 in
three days, and the temperature
mounted to l06, killing every one
of them.
HERE was a real lead for any G.
mani Spencer was quick to follow
it through. He took some Of the fiat
ticks from the refrigerator and
fastened them with adhesive tape
onto the shaved surface of a guinea
pigs body, letting them feed to
engagement. Then, with his as
sistants, he picked of the engorged
ticks and dropped them into a NOR
tar. grinding them up with salt solu-
ton. This solution was shot into
healthy, fresh guinea pigs. In three
days the animals were down with
spotted fever In few days more
had proved it was the meal Of blood
that turned harmless tick into an
agent of death!
Spencer told his laboratory workers
one of whom was a young college
student bent on becoming a doctor,
Bill Gettinger-"Be careful Of this
stuff Remember what we have our
hands into" Despite the warning
Gettinger came down with the dis
ease, his fever mounting to 105. He
died, delirious, in the hospital to
which he was taken, and for six nights
Spencer had no Sleep When he went
back to the laboratory he tackled
sign over the door: Persons entering
these premises do so at their own
risk!'
Spencer and Parker set about rails