Evening star., 1937-03-28
Bv Lucy Salamanca.

By Lucy Salamanca.
~ NE of the most dramatic con-
quests in the history of
American medicine was the
~ victory of one of that band
of scientific Omen who mix their
magic breWs in the laboratories Of
the National Institute of Health in
Washington. Under the United States
Bureau of Public Health, they are
Americas advance guard, the shock
troops of science, always on call when
national health emergencies call them
to the field, and the acclaim of their
accomplishments has gone around the
world.
Hence DR.. R. r. SpenCer's thrilling
combat with a disease that was strik-
ing havoc into the hearts of the
rancherS and farmers of the North
west, that was making it dangerous
for them to go about their daily tasks
In the fields and woodlands and was
taking a toll Of life in almost every
instance where it struck, may well be
considered one of the outstanding
accomplishments Of our times. The
name of Spencer and Rocky Noun
tain spotted fever are now perma-
nently associated.
With the modesty of his kind. DR.,
Spencer today shrugs away the drama
of what he and his little band of help
ers accomplished in the small school
house in Montana where they had
set up their laboratory. But those who
know him declare his successful vac
cine against the fever of the North
west is only the first Of the victories
against disease that we may be able
to chalk up to the credit of this
Oman of science in years to come,
for he is still in early middle age,
and perennially active in the war
against disease.
One bulletin that went out from
the Health Institute laboratory was
prefaced with these words: To the
memory OF our fellow laboratory work
ers. who, While engaged in the study
of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, have
contracted the disease and died"
Five lost their lives in that fight.
And Spencer, in charge, was in
the midst of it. That he did not
come down with the fever is one
of those peculiar qulrks of chance
which sometimes seem to operate in
human lives, for every risk the others
took he was ahead of them in taking.
For weeks he lived in crawling
pesthole of ticks and larvae, so mi
mute and deadly man could never
be sure he had not been bitten, or
that he was not actually coming
down with the fever any day between
sunup and sundoWn. For weeks he
went nonchalantly about the task of
studying, collecting, MASKING and
breeding ticks in whose bodies thrived
the unknown little agent of death.
It was in the Spring Of 1922 that
word first came from the Bitter Root
Valley in Western Montana that
hunters and ranchers were dying from
ghastly kind of disease which
seemed to spring from nowhere. An
appeal sped to the Bureau Of Public
Health for some one to investigate
the strange destroyer and help fight 1t.
IN THE foothills OF the Western
mountains ranchers were deserting
their cabins, farms were being neg
lected panic was descending upon the
citizens Of community where even
a walk abroad in the fields often
meant bringing back into homes and
Offices this dreadful malady that in
practically every instance meant
death. So far as could be judged, it
took eight out Of every ten. McCintic
of the Government Health Service
had died of 1t during the course OF
investigations and / year and 10 days
later McCray, a Montana doctor had
followed McClintic while working on
a serum he hoped would prove effect
i've as an immupizing agent.
1t was into this valley of death that
Spencer went with his wife and two
small babies in the Spring of 1922,
answering the call Of the service. He
was met there by r. r. Parker, whose
business it was to hunt bugs instead
of microbes, and Spencer and Parker
set up their laboratory in small,
abandoned school house couple OF
miles out of town.
Parker had worked for seven years
as an entomologist in Montana and
had become vitality concerned about
this strange fever. You could only
get the disease, it appeared, If you
had been bitten by a wood tick. |
There were certain west slope cam
yons, Parker told Spencer, which it
was actually foolhardy to traverse, for
practically every one returning from
them was taken i'll shortly afterward,
breaking out in big purple blotches,
and dying, oftentimes in delirium. The
brother and ister-in-laW of the Gov
ernor of Montana had gone there and
10 days after their return both were
dead.
Spencer and Parker wanted TO find
out why no one seemed to catch the
plague when they went into the east
ern slopes of the Bitter Root Valley,
where the ticks, apparently, we're no
different.
Two practicing physicians of Boise,
Idaho-McCalla and Brereton-had
first discovered that the wood tick
was responsible for spotted fever, and
later Ricketts,, out from Chicago for
his health in the mountains, had
been so intrigued by the scientific
~, = ~