Medicine: Bottled Death

The story of a lethal genie that can live in a test tube for 20 years and, when uncorked, can kill again was told in Public Health Reports last week by Dr. Edward Francis. The genie is the bubonic-plague bacillus.

The particular bacillus used in Dr. Francis’ experiment was taken in 1923 from a sick California ground squirrel. It was used to inoculate 48 test tubes partly filled with beef infusion agar jelly. The tubes were tightly sealed to insure a moist atmosphere and stored at a temperature of 50° F.

That was all the coddling the bacillus rot, but that was enough. When 20 years were up last April, the bacteria in 33 of the tubes were very much alive. To find out whether the live germs were still killers, they were injected into 33 guinea pigs. Result: 22 guinea pigs got bubonic plague; eleven did not.