NEWS BY MAIL

Hokitika Guardian, 18 July 1922, Page 3

NEWS BY MAIL

MICROBE-M 1 NCI NG MAC HI XK. LONDON, May 29

An extraordinary little machine for 1:1 i ll c-in<r microbes was shown yesterday to the Daily .Mail medical correspondent at the Pickett-Tlinnison Research l.ahoratory in St Paul’s Hospital, F.n-dell-street, W. 0., hy Dr David Thomson, director of the lahorator.v. .Microhes are so infinitesimally small that 0,000.000 of them in a mass are invisibiand l,fX)!),(>00,000 are only about the size of the head of a small pin.

To cut up microbes is therefore a difpcult task. Rut this little-electricai-Iv-driven machine succeeds in cutting or "smashing” them. There are two discs, one of which is stationary while the other rotates. The stationary disc has 70 tiny steel knives and tli'e rotation: one SO cutting edges.

'The microbes, suspended in an alkaline lipoid, are forced against these cutting edges at a speed of (it) miles nor hour, with the result t’ at 2K,000,00!) cuts are made per minute. During the 20 minutes the germs usuallv remain in the machine thev receive otiO million cuts.

lint while some microbes arc smashed l.y Ibis nr-cess others arc so tough that thov come on! whole end soon '. A machine is therefore being constructed with 130 cutting edges, which will whirl the microbes at the rate of 120 miles an hour, giving 301) million cuts per minute^ hi 11io British Medical Journal t.V Thomsen explains the use of .this machine. Inoculations against infections diseases, such as typhoid fever, can be made with germs containing all their poisons or with germs from which tno poisons have been removed. If detoxicated vaccines arc used very runli larger Jus \s can be administered, and tlm larger the dose the greater is i!i” protection from the particular direr.se

“BACTTELOir'i" WIFE. i LONDON, May 2b. i ‘ The little village of Boulton, near J Cirencester, Gloucestershire, lias just | had revealed to it the existence in its j midst of a man’s secret which he jealously guarded as long as he was alive , The representative of the village on to Cirencester Board of Guardians anil ; on the Rural District Council, Mr Ren j : Carp niter, 37, was always regarded as , a bachelor. He was looked after by j an old housekeeper who had been cm-| ployed bv his family for 30 years. -Mr j Carpenter and the lumsekeeper both | died recently on the same day. ; Papers which wore then found ms- j closed the fact that Mr Carpenter had | been married for 18 months, although lie had never lived with Ins wife. I m , villagers regarded the statement as ; idle "gossip and six bachelors carried j the coffin to the grave. . Mrs Carpenter, however, arrived in ; Poulton just after the funeral proves- . sion had started, and proved to be a i governess who had been employed m j tc district years ago. j

FR ANCE AND RITMANTA. i PARIS, May 29. j Great importance is attached to the , interview which M. Bratinno, the Re- , mania.. Prime Minister had yesUrday , with. M. Poincaire and Marshal Foci . ; M Rrntiauo explained at length the ( diplomatic and military position o • Rumania and gave fads which pr vthe grave possibility ot a Bolslie ■ attack on the Rumanian province <» , Bessarabia (which was acquired from , Russia after the war).) He was desirous of ascertaining what would be | the French attitude in such an even- ; ‘"f understand that M. Bratiano re- ' ceived a formal promise that m the I event of an unprovoked attack I'ranee would stand by Rumania just as she has already promised to s-and Jt>> Poland, and would render her technical assistance and sunplv her with war • stores. It is probable that a conven- , t.jmi embod-ving these conclusions will .shortly be signed.