Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1943-09-03
Microbes That Save
Soldiers Lives
By J. d. RafcIif
(WNU Feature-Through special arrangement
with Golfers Weekly

terms of sudden death. But there
are good microbes, too. We couldn't
live without them. If we didn't have
microbes to eat dead vegetation it
would pile up and choke off all life.
Microbes give us cheese, buttermilk,
sauerkraut, pickles, olives. They
capture atmospheric nitrogen to en-
rich the soil and do us a thousand
good turns.
Industry is beginning to see tre-
mendous possibilities in microbes
in the yeasts, molds and bacteria.
These little creatures are magnifi-
cent chemists. They can do jobs
which stump the brightest men.
They can turn wood into sugar, and
sugar into fat. They can convert
stuff like corn sugar into resins,
gums and vitamins.
These facts account for the quick
ening interest in the new science of
industrial microbiology. And it also
accounts for the fact that in the past
year or so, this country has built up
one of the worlds best microbe ZOOS
so the creatures will be on hand
when jobs are found for them.
MicrObe 'Z0o.'
This ZOO is in Peoria, In.-in the
department of agriculture's northern
regional research laboratory. The
zoo contains 1900 molds, 1000
yeasts, and 500 varieties of bacteria.
The creatures in this zoo are kept
in test tubes and TASKS instead
of cages. Some live in refrigera-
tor rooms, others in closets or incu-
bators.
The hero of the laboratory at the
moment is a mold called Pendulum
notatum. This mold makes the
drug penicillin, which is the most
potent weapon against death ever
discovered. The new drug, not yet
on the market, was discovered by
accident by British research man
named Alexander Fleming. He was
growing disease-causing bacteria in
his laboratory when he noted that a
mold had contaminated the plates.
More important, he noted that some
thing given off by the mold was kill
ing the bacteria. He started search
ing for the cause of this bacteria
death-and found penicillin.
British doctors found this drug
would do almost everything the
sulfa drugs would do and a great
deal besides. 1t was the most potent
weapon ever found against infection.
Penicillin cleared up horrid bone
infections and did other jobs. 1t lit
orally snatched people back from
sure death.
Yet there was a catch to all this
magnificent life-saving. The mold
that produced the drug was inordi-
nately difficult to grow. And it yield
ed only minute quantities of the
drug. Since large quantities of
penicillin were desperately needed to
treat war wounded, British research
men turned to America. Would the
Peoria laboratory see what it could
do toward finding molds to produce
large quantities of the drug? The
job was handed to long-faced, pipe
smoking DR.. Andrew Meyer.
Some people have an intuitive
sense of knowing what will please
children. Meyer has the same flair
with molds. He has worked with
them 20 years, knows their likes and
dislikes. He coddles them with
vitamins, beef broth and other
things.
Pendulum Slow Grower.
When it was turned over to him,
Pendulum notatum was pretty sor-
ry stuff. 1t was difficult to grow.
And it produced only two units of
penicillin per cubic centimeter. Since
a desperately ill human being might
require two million units, this was
an almost hopelessly inadequate
yield
Maybe, Meyer decided, the Brit
ish weren't feeding the green mold
properly. He looked around for 9TH
er foOds-and hit on corn steep
liquor. This is the water starch
makers soak corn in. Don't ask why
Meyer decided this might work. He
can't tell you himself. But it did
work. Production shot up immedi-
ately. He looked for other foods
that might be tempting; and looked
for more productive strains of the
mold. All this, of course, required
months. But the work was crowned
with magnificent success. Instead of
getting 20 units of penicillin per
cubic centimeter, Meyer is getting
dozens Of times this yield!
Government chemists recently
found microbe that would produce
tremendous quantities of gluconic
acid. At the time, this stuff was a
chemical curiosity costing $500 a
pound. But once it was available,
in quantity and at low price, re-
search men quickly found uses for
it. They found that if it were con-
verted into calcium gluconate, it
had uses in tanning, metallurgy, and
in making toothpaste. But its most
striking use was in veterinary
medicine, where it provided a ready
source of calcium in form easily
assimilated by farm animals.