MICROBE MURDERERS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 221, 12 May 1932, Page 6

MICROBE MURDERERS

(From a Correspondent.)

METH.ODS OF GREATEST CRIME IIUNT IN THE WORLD.

LONDON, March 16. One of the greatest detective stories of history is slowly being unfolded in an unpretentious red brielc building at Hampstead, on the northern fringe of London. When the last clue is found, the secret of a criminal responsible for the deaths of literally millions of human beings, cattle, sheep and horses will have been discovered. The criminal— a minute, invisible speck of matter; the virus— causes dozens of deadly diseases, from smallpox to influenza. Viruses are the persistent enemy of the New Zealand farmer, for they kill pigs by swine-fever, sheep by heartwater, poultry by fowl-pox, and several other diseases and are responsible for foot-and-mouth disease, an ever-present spectre which may suddenly menace New Zealand's great dairy industry. They devastate his potato crop by diseases such as "streak," "crinkle," and "mosaic," and in other parts of the world they infect tobacco, banana, and groundnut crops. Even silkworms and fish are not immune from attack. The detectives on the virus trail are the scientific research workers at the National Institute for Medical Research who are devoting their lives to sleuthing these microscopic murderers of men, beasts and plants. I have just been privileged to hear the latest news of this scientific erime-hunt. Such rapid strides are being made that even cautious scientists have suggested that the next few years may see developments comparable to the great discovery of bacteria (the so-called "germs") by Pasteur 70 years ago. Are Thiey Alive or Dead? At the Hampstead laboratories, at the Lister Institute, (on the Thames Embankment) and at Rothamsted (where the Empire Marketing Board is financing a five year's plan of attack on plant diseases) remarkable improvements have been made in the elaborate technique necessary to track. these ultra-microscopic organisms. As a result, facts have been established which are opening a new chapter in biological research. The nature of the viruses remained almost a complete mystery until a few years ago. They were known to pass through the finest porcelain filters, to be invisible under the highest powers of the microscope, and to refuse stubbornly to grow artificially in the laboratory. It was not even known whether they were alive, or whether their infinitesimal size made it impossible for life to exist in such a tiny compass. The situation amounted to a virtual checkmate. Giving Nature the Third Degree. But, just as Scotland Yard follows up, within finite patiences, every slender clue that might lead to the identification of a criminal, so the scientists have slowly pieced together the facts. They have given nature the third degree, and forced her, after years of persistent questioning, to give away some, at any r'ate, of her secrets. In the first place, they have discovered that viruses are alive. These tiny specks of life have been measured and photographed, like any other suspected murderer. They have even been seen to reproduce by splitting into two. In size they range from "large" viruses — possibly measuring' a ten-thousandth of a millimetre across — which are but little smaller than the smallest bacteria, down to minute organisms 'such as tjie foot-and-mouth virus, the smallest known, which is only about three times the size of a molecule of oxyhaenxoglobin (the red colouring matter of the blood). Another triumph is the discovery by Dr. Elford, one of the research workers, of a method of filtering viruses through special "eollodion" membranes. In this way, they have been sorted out into grades which correspond to measurements taken under the ultra-violet ray microscope. A third very important result, achieved after years of failure, has been the cultivation of viruses in the laboratory. Living animal cells growing in laboratory dishes quite separate from the animals are used as a medium on which the virus can be presuaded to grow.