A GREAT GERM MUSEUM.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 3130, 9 December 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

A GREAT GERM MUSEUM.

— . +■ LONDON'S VAST BOARDINGHOUSE FOR DEADLY BACILLI. (By CURTIS BROWN.) {Detroit Free Press). If the people m a large, clean looking brick building which stands on the Thames Embankment, only a step from Chelsea Bridge, ever should happen to get a grudge against the World,, the world will have good cause to rue that day. Given half a chance it wouldn't take these folks much more than a week or so to kill off two-thirds of the earth's inliabhants and get well along towaid wiping out the other third. They would probably attend to the depopulation of England before breakfast. The plague did uncommonly well m London m Charles n.'s time, and it might contrive to make considerable trouble now. The people m this building keep plague on tap. The place thus furnished with every modern convenience for conducting a particularly destructive campaign against humanity was, however, built by charitable millionaires for a directly opposite purpose. It is called the British Institution of Preventive Medicine. It was established a little over a year ago, at a cost of 2,000,000d01. Moreover, Lord Iveagh, whose family name i« Guinness, and whose Dublin stout brougtit him a baronetcy, has given to the institution a million and a quarter more. He imposed a few conditions on the gift which brought the matter into court for tecluiical adjudication. The judges straightened out the tangle, and the magnificent sum which is now available will make this germ house one of the wonders of the world. world's germ headquarters. The purpose of the Institute is threefold : It is a college where a physician who is to act as a health officer can come and learn how to classify the bacilli he meets m a business way, and also how to fight them ; and to which the ordinary physician can drop a post-card to find out how to cope with a new variety of disease germ. Besides this it is a kind of medical war office, which makes a business of hunting up the strongholds of troublesome bacilli and planning campaigns against them ; and, finally—though this is not included m the institution's prospectus— it is a home-like boarding-house for uncounted billions of deadly germs. I asked to see the rooms where these germs lived, and was introduced to it by Dv Hewlett, who is the chief bacteriologist. This remarkable room was flooded with sunlight from a row of great windows that look out on the Thames and Battersea Park, and there were also electric lights on every hand. On all sides were chemical apparatus, highly burnished microscopes, tall glass jars labelled " distilled water," square iron heating ovens with glass doors, filled with round plates, also of glass, which seemed to have something cooking m them. On one side of the wall were series of innumerable pockets, and each one of these was filled to overflowing with round glass test tubes, their ends stuffed with ordinary cotton batting, the top of which had been scorched. Above each of these pockets was pasted a slip of paper beating the bulky scientific name of tincontents. IN THK NURSERY OF PLAGUES. "All these innocent looking glass tubes that you see there," said Dr Hewlett, "contain, deadly disease germs." He began lifting various ones out, holding them up to the light as carelessly as if' each were full of bread pills instead of enterprising animalcula. " This," he said, picking up a tube containing a sort of yellow fluid, "is the. bacillus which causes plague — the bubonic plague' now troubling Oporto; here :ue the bacilli of typioid fever and of cholera. This furry-looking specimen is the lockjaw bacillus ; his neighbour produces diphtheria, and the bacillus which puts off this browni.-h fluid also does a bit m the glanders way. They are invisible to the naked eye, of course, but can be distin- ! guished by the quality of the matter which I emanates from them.' We have hosts of others tile names of which you wouldn't recognise so easily. Yes, they are all alive. If you notice, the side of each of these tubes is covered with a yellowish substance. The bacilli live on that. We make it downstairs, and a. variety of wiings enter into it. chief among them being solidified blood serum, obtained from the blood of hor.ses and mixed with gelatine. We nlso use agar jelly, which is drawn from a Japanese weed. In some of the tubes are strips of potato. The bacilli thrive or» potato or on milk or meat broth. Every tube contains millions of the bacilli, each of them about one twelve-thousandth of an inch long." "Is there sex m bacilli?" was asktd. '■ No. The propagation of bacilli is not carried on through birth, but is the result of a remarkable geometrical separation m the animal itself, which occurs every half hour. That is to say, every half hour each bacillus divides into two parts, and at the t-nd of another half hour each of those parts has again divided into two. So it is easy to see how wonderfully rapid is the increase m numbers cf these inhabitants oi these cultures. When comparatively a few bacilli have been placed, with the nutritious jelly, m one of these cultures it is necesI sary at the end of two weeks, or evei: less time, to remove half of them. If this is neglected, by the end of the third week all the bacilli will have died from sheer overcrowding. For this reason we are constantly transplanting bacilli from the old to fresh cultures, and this is done with ;i long, sterilized platinum needle, looped a( the end." IHK GERM XUHSKS. Two persons were at work m the room, both dressed m white. Oiw was a small | boy wearing immense spectacles, his hair , brushed severely behind his ears, and hay- ! ing the facial expression of one who putf down several small epidemics every day merely by way of exercise. He was washing, with proper dignity, several round glass dishes m a basin of sterilized water and acid. The other was Mr Burgess,. Di Hewlett's assistant, who acts m the capacity ! of caterer to the germs. I " Sometimes,"' said Mr Burgess, " 1 have a hard time to keep the bacilli alive at -ill, for some of them multiply so f;ist that they I crowd each other to death even though 1 keep starting fresh cultures. Kaeh time they are changed from one culture to another they grow loss virulent it can't be otherwise when they live on thi« artificial nourishment. But if I should inoculate eren «oiue of those that axe nearly dead into a live animal, they would soon be as healthy and virulent- us ever. They're just like some people j they want change all the time, .and transferring them from culture to culture is just like sending a city boy out m the country for his vocation. There is only one variety that we can't cultivate - -the bacilli of leprosy. In fact you're never absolutely positive that you've scoured it. This culture contains the leprosy germ." He held up the culture to the light. It contained a strip of raw potato covered with what looked like fine sawdust. UNDER SUSPICION. Mr Burgess was asked the purpose of the round dishes which one could see Ihrouprii the glass doors of the oven -it's called the "incubator,"' by the way. "Those may contain bacilli," he said. " If it m suspected that they exist m a certain place, sovoial of those round, covered glass dishes, all of which an- smeared inside with gelatine, are left then-. After a time they are removed, brought, bore and placed m the incubator, which is then kept at a temperature of 300 degrees. And the result is — tlnrt. I*'1 *' He had opened the door and drawn (jut oun of the plates, which he held up ti> the light. It looked as if a oha,ixe *f small shot had been fired ngaiii.ir U. Evidently the bacilli had " bemi tkere." When -a London physician is unable to diagnose a ca.se which he fea>rs may he infectious, he is at liberty to forward to the institute a bit of cotton batting whuh kt.s been rubbed <m the throat of )uh patient. This is eot-losed iv gins* seJ it ty- vegis-

tered mail m an especially prepared envelope. At the institute the cotton is removed and rubbed carefully on the inside of ;i culture tube already containing the prepared gelatine. The tube is then stopped with cotton batting, the top of which is burned to kill off the germs which may have rambled off the hands of the operator, and which, if not destroyed would -work their way down and make fnends with ihn disease germs This culture tube is placed m the incubator and kept for twelve hours m an atmosphere maintained at blood heat. By this time the bacilli will have multiplied to such an extent that the fluid thrown off by them may be detected above the jelly. PECULIAR BOOKKEEPING. Every " specimen " sent m by a physician is entered, with the physician's name and address and those of his patient, m a ledger, and examined as soon as possible. If "the specimen con-tains bacilli, a printed red slip is sent to the physician, saying that the bacilli have been "isolated." If the specimen contains no germs, a white slip is sent,, stating that the bacilli have not been isolated, which means that the physician need not build a trocha around his patient. Mr Burgess says that there i 8 little or no danger m handling the bacilli. Nothing worse than breaking one of the glass cultures could happen, and, if it did, the operator need only wash his hands m carbolic acid to give the happy despatch to any germs which may have got loose. They never have had an accident at the institute. At one of the great establishmenta at Vienna, however, one of the experimenters got drunk one fine day and managed to inoculate himself with the plague bacilli. He grew ill, and was attended by a physician and two nurses. The plague had. them m no time, and they m turn passed the disease along to others, so that an able-bodied epidemic was soon In full blast. Mr Burgess remarked tiiat by the system employed at the institute, even should a tube be broken, there would be no danger of bacilli getting into the atmosphere, as the jelly m which they are embedded would have to become dried before that would be possible. DISEASES Js'OT FOB SALE. I asked him what ru the value of his germ collection. " It has little value «aye as a means of study for us and our pupils," he said. " There is absolutely no truth m the reports which have been published that remarkable sums have been paid and are being paid for germs. The only thing which makes one germ of greater value than another is the time occupied m its growth. Thus, the propagation of the consumption bacilli goe* on much more slowly than that of the typhoid bacilli. We always are glad to oblige any person with whom we are acquainted or who has an established reputation with specimens of bacilli, and, m case any of our bacilli die, we lay m a fresh stock. The idea that there is an active and lucrative traffic m disease germs, however, is an utterly mistaken one." Besides the room which serves as a germ menagerie, the Institute contains splendidly equipped laboratories without end, a hall where lectures are given, a museum, a photographing room upon which thousands of dollars have been lavished, the chamber where the blood-serum jelly has been leased to the Local Government Board, and m which the new ylyeerinated lymph is made. In the rear is the crematory, a great furnace m which everything that is of no further use is burned to prevent possible infection. To make assurance doubly sure, this is fitted with a separate chimney. THKY HAVE BACILLI FOR DINNER. The animal house is almost as remarkable as the bneillu* apartment. Dr Hewlett and I stepped m, and found ourselves m the presence of guinea pigs enough to keep any number of bacilli reasonably busy. There must have been 150 of them swarming m a big pen. " They are our favourite subjects for inoculation," Dr Hewlett remarked. " They are cheap, convenient to handle, and, unfortunately for them, they take almost any disease readily." Behind the guinea pig room ie & larger one, its walls almost hidden behind piles of cages rilled with pigeons, rabbite, dogs and one cat. which the doctors have _ gathered despite all the efforts of " Chinese "' Gordon's sister-in-law, who is trying to save London tabbies from contributing to science. Many of the animals have been inoculated and cured again, and all seemed none the worse for having harboured bacilli. The institute is not a Government establishment. It was built by private subscription entirely, and is designed to be to England what Pasteur Institute is to France. The largest individual gift wae made by the late Richard Berridge. and amounted to 225,000dol ; the Grocers' Company gave 50,000d01, and the Duke of Westminster, from whom the site was bought, also was a contributor. Others were the Royal Society, Sir John Lubbock, and "medical graduntes all over England, Scotland and Ireland. In addition to the present capital, Lord Iveagh has promised a subscription of 500,000 dol, which, it is trtought, will be m hand before the end of this year. This institute is governed b^y a council, which numbers seme of the foremost medical men and bacteriologists of the United Kingdom.