RAYS THAT WILL KILL GERMS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 136, 10 June 1937, Page 10

RAYS THAT WILL KILL GERMS

Research Workers’ Tests

& SNEEZE, says J. 1). Ratcliff, in Colliers, was thought to have been proved by the German researcher, Fluggo, not to be a means by which the killer-microbes of infected invalids’ respiratory-tracks reach the air and other and healthier persons. But ‘William F. Wells and Wyman R. Stone of Harvard about a year ago decided that the sneeze, a veritable bacteria howitzer, might project deadly bacteria into the air. Anyway they wanted to see for themselves. They built a sneezing machine, an atomising nozzle stuck through one wall of a glass-lined room. A blast of air ia the nozzle sent spray of bacteria, mixed with distilled water, into the room. They shot whiffs of deadly mi crobes into the loom, allowed time for gravity to drag them to the ground and kill them, as Fhigge had said it did. Pneumococcus, type 1, one organism that causes pneumonia, was still floating well and happy after two days. The bacillus diphtheriae, the one that clogs babies’ throats and kills them with diphtheria, also. The less harmful streptococcus viridans lived two days. Those bacteria which caused dysentery, typhoid, and other intestinal disorders were less virile. The respiratory diseases were much more virulent. If these bacteria survived so readily, how far could they travel? Wells didn’t know but he wanted to find some way to clean the air quickly, thorough-

ly and cheaply. Sunshine he Knew made bacteria shrivel und die. The ultraviolet rays that form a component part of daylight were supposed to do the trick. Be decided to experiment with an artificial ray lamp. Working in the dark he pumped his glass room full of colon bacteria. Then he switched on the big ultraviolet lamp for a few seconds. They came out all dead. H< checked and rechecked lii-s results, found that the rays literally shook the acid nuclei of the bacteria to pieces as a terrier does a rat and shrivelled them into extinction. But he still wasn’t ready to try his operation on a man, So he worked on man’s mo»t faithful research animal, the dog. One animal was incised without the ultraviolet light overhead, the other was operated on beneath the light. The latter nridS a phenomenally rapid recovery. The doctor hesitated no longer. A group of patients who needed deep chest incision j were given the treatment, half of them under the rew technique with the ultra« violet lamps. None died. In no case were contaminating organisms found in the incision under the tubes. The ray* treated patients lay in bed only 9 days, the ray-less patients 29. Ultraviolet light has also been foun< to preserve meat from bacterial at* tacks, which means that it does nof need refrigeration, and to cut bakers* losses of cakes to six times less thafl what thev used to be.