Evening star., 1937-03-07
Continued From First Page.)

CONTINUED From First Page)
pains in other parts of the body, fol-
lowed by an outbreak of rash and
profuse perspiration. Curiously
enough, these attacks we're followed
by a period wherein the temperature
was reduced again to normal, the
pains disappeared, likewise the rash
and other manifestations. The patients
were believed to have recovered. But
four or five days later they were the
victims of second abrupt onslaught
and suffered a complete renewal of
every symptom. This kept up for
some time, frequent relapses followed
by interims of apparent well being.
Hence the disease was named re
lapsing fever"
physicians called in to treat the
victims were puzzled They got
in touch with the scientific G-men
of the National Health Institute on
the shores of the Potomac in WASH
1ngton.
This thing looks like malaria to
u.s." they wrote, but We need your
help in combating it." Meanwhile,
they treated it with quinine, with little
or no result. One of the physicians
set about tracing the source of the
infection. He recalled that without
exception the boys stricken had
played, in the course of their camping
trip, in caves. So DR.. G. M. Graham
set out for the same caves.
When he emerged from the first cave
1t was to find himself completely
covered, from ankle to knee, with blue
ticks. He picked off the ticks, put
them in little boxes together with some
brown earth from the floor of the cave,
and forwarded them to Washington,
addressed to DR.. Francis. Six days
later Graham had come down with an
attack of relapsing fever. Meanwhile,
challenged by the little blue ticks,
gathered specimens from caves in
Llano, San Saba Mills, Travis and
Denton counties. Bottles filled with
powdery brown dirt and blue ticks
came rolling into Washington, and DR..
Francis set to work to discover what
made this little creature so deadly.
DR.. Graham was methodically going
through the phases of the disease in
Texas. His fever would mount. He
would suffer pain, break out into a rash
and perspiration, then, niraculously,
every symptom would disappear. For
four or five days he would feel well
again. Then would begin the second
onslaught. The routine of attack never
varied. Medical men we're piqued and
laboratories gave their attention TO
combating this mysterious new germ.
Hot on the trail of the bug" they
examined drops of blood taken from
patients. They found in blood taken
during the third relapse a curious,
spiral shaped germ, two or three times
longer than the diameter of a red
blood corpuscle. 1t was a typical
spirochete, like the germs present IN
blood infected with rat-bite fever or
syphilis. This does not mean there is
any connection between relapSing
fever, for example, or any other disease
showing spirochetic germs and syphilis.
1t simply indicates that the same type
Of germ is responsible for the infection.
DR. FRANCIS, working in his prac-
~ tical and methodical manner, had
first to determine what the blue ticks
had to do with all this business. He
separated the colonies of ticks that
were being sent him. Some he isolated,
without food, for he wished to ascer-
tain their power to survive. Others he
gave away to interested scientists
working in the same building with
him. Still others he retained for ex-
perimental purposes. He had made a
series of small blocks of pine wood,
followed out, with cork to fit the
opening in each, and into each of these
he placed q tick. These little pine
houses were then set in a shallow pan
on a bed Of sand. He saturated the
sand with disinfectant so that If the