TUBERCULOSIS SUGAR

Taranaki Daily News, 23 July 1929, Page 11

TUBERCULOSIS SUGAR

DEADLY POISON FOUND. OBTAINED FROM THE GERMS. The world’s first poisonous sugar has been discovered lurking within the tuberculosis germ. Although it is harmless to uninfected animals it is death to those suffering from tuberculosis. Produced by the tubercle bacillus itself, it is probably the stuff that slowly poisons the victim of the white plague. . Such is the latest news from a great co-operative research effort directed at a greater knowledge of the disease and an eventual of this knowledge in saving human lives. To the National Tuberculosis Association meeting recently, Dr, William C. White, of the Hygienic Laboratoiy of the United States Public Health Service at Washington, brought his test results that showed the deadliness of the new polysaccharide isolated from tuberculosis germs by Dr. R. J. Anderson, Yale chemist. Never before in medical or chemical history has a sugar been shown to be poisonous. But a small amount of this white, innocent-looking, sweetish substance injected into a tuberculous animal causes its death in four or five hours. A well animal similarly treated shivers, then runs a temperature, its white blood cells decrease, showing that the sugar has some effect on. the healthy body even if the consequences are not tragic. This is the second startling discovery in the course of co-operation research by twenty-one organisations and dozens of scientists, under the general direction of the National Tuberculosis Association. Last month, Dr. Florence R. Sabin, of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York City, revealed that a germ-free fat, obtained from chemical analysis of the tuberculosis germ, and similar in composition to food fats, will cause the characteristic tubercles of the disease. This inaugurated a new technique in disease study. As unnecessary preliminary to these discoveries of new roles for sugar and fat, Professors Treat B. Johnson and R. J.' Anderson, at Yale, undertook large scale chemical separations of bacteria into their component compounds. H. K. Mulford Company and Parke Davis and Company grew many pounds of various conditions to supply the raw materials for the separations.