DEATH TUBES STOLEN

Hawera Star, Volume L, 31 July 1930, Page 8

DEATH TUBES STOLEN

MISSED WITH MOTOR CAR

FORTUNATE RECOVERY.

Tubes of disease cultures of such a deadly nature that a mere sliilf of them would have involved infection were lost in London for several hours on May !).

The tubes had been stolen with the ear of a young woman scientist, who was in a state of great alarm and distress until the news came that they had been recovered with the car, after a frantic search by Scotland Yard, at Islington. Miss K. Chevassut, of Westminster Hospital, whose! discoveries in connedtion with disseminated 1 sclerosis have created great interest in scientific circles, left her car outside University College Hospital while she talked for a few minutes with one of the physicians. When she came out her car had disappeared. She was very much distressed and alarmed for the fate of the tubes of cultures.

“■lf anyone d'ere to sniff them even —I myself would never dare to do so—lie would become infected,’’ said Miss Chevassut, They 1 were stopped only by wads of cotton wool. If the thieves had taken' the stopper out or thrown them down an area I would not like to have answered for the consequences.’’ > The car Was specially fitted for carrying these tubes and for carrying surgical instruments. The car, with the tubes intact, Was found in the evening abandoned in a street. The “Lancet,’’ iu discussing Miss

Chevassut’s discoveries, said that if the discovery was substantiated it would • ‘ rank among the foremost achievements of bacteriology.”