Evening star., 1953-03-27
Tick-Curried Germ
Is UnbeIievobIy Potent
Gram in 81 Million GuIIons
OfWuter Can Cause Illness
By Thomas R. Henry

By Thomas R. Henry
The agent of @ fever, tick-carried
disease which now has been found over
most of the world, is so potent that the
malady can be transmitted by pulver-
lied tick tissue diluted 500 billion
times.
If gram of crushed ticks is mixed
in 8.745.000 gallons Of water, a single
drop of the mixture would be enough
to give the disease to guinea pig.
This is reported by DR.. Cornelius B.
Philip, assistant director of the Rocky
Mountain Laboratory Of the United
States Public Health Service at Ham
ilton, Mont. This laboratory special
ICES in the study Of tick-carried dis
eases.
@ fever, first known in Australia and
identified in the United States only a
few years ago, is due to a Rickettsia, a
micro-organism about half way be-
tween one of the bacteria and q filter
able virus. The same kind of organism
causes typhus. Nine species of ticks
have been found to carry the organism
which they transmit from animals to
man.
Enemy of Man.
Laboratory studies have shown, DR..
Philip reported, some astounding facts
about ticks. which carry a wide variety
of diseases and can be considered
among mans most malevolent enemies.
They depend for their existence en-.
tirely on the blood of their hosts but
there are extraordinary records Of
longevity without any feeding at all.
One report was that tick had been
kept for 18 years without anything to
eat. DR.. Philip doubts this. But an
authentic record at the Rocky Noun
tain Laboratory is that of one kept for
nine years without blood meal. Then
it was fed and lived for another three
and-a-haf years without another feed
ing.
The fecundity of these bugs is enor-
NOUS A female of one species laid
$4,000 eggs in one batch. Probably
few of these eggs hatch. A fair guess
is one pair for each female per genera
ton. Otherwise, DR.. Philip points out
in a report in the journal Of the Amer
ican Association for the Advancement
of Science, I'VE would soon be SWIM
ming in ticks"
Some persons and animals, he points
out in the report. appear to have q
natural aroma Of some sort that repels
ticks and whole populations in some
places appear to develop an immunity
to ticks carrying diseases that prove
quickly fatal to strangers.
X
Ancient Bones Found.
Bones of warm -blooded creatures of
the dawn age-some of which may
have been vaguely ancestral to man
obtained during the past few years in
Southwestern wyoming have just been
classified and described by DR.. C. Lewis
Gain, Smithsonian Institution Gu
rator of vertebrate paleontology.
The animals who left these bones
represent the life Of the first part of
Eocene time, the second period of the
age of mammals. Mammals first had
become the dominant forms of land
life in the preceding age, the Paleo-
Gene. The great reptiles which had
ruled the earth for several hundred
thousand years had become extinct.
The primitive, Small-brained, warm
blooded creatures, left without serious
competition, were able to persist.
o. The bones classified by the Smith
Sonian paleontologiSt, who himself
collected most of them, appeared in
mammals extant today. They included
in a general way forerunners Of
monkeys. bears, dogs and pigs.
OF special interest in the collection
are the primates. The bones include
those of an hitherto undescribed
species of the Northarctus. It was an
animal of about the size of the present.
day Rhesus monkey, and presumably
was tree dWeller. 1t is probable that
from some form similar to North
arctus came the monkeys of today
perhaps also the great apes. North
arctus itself became extinct almost so
million years ago.
MOuSe-Like Primate.
The collection also contains a new
species of mouse like primate belong.
ing to the Tarsoids, living representa-
tives Of which are the weird little
tarsiers Of the East Indies. Both these
primate lines appeared to flourish
during the lower Eocene, but for un-
known reasons became extinct in the
middle Eocene, a few million years
later, so far as North America was
concerned. Some persisted in tropical
America and others, more progress
sive line, in the Old World.
A curious creature represented in
the collection was a stylodint, which
was about the size of large pig with
heavy, curved tusk-like teeth. It prob
ably looked much like an enormous
rat.