DEATH TUBES STOLEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1042, 5 August 1930, Page 14

DEATH TUBES STOLEN

FORTUNATE RECOVERY Tubes of disease cultures of such a deadly nature that a mere sniff of them would have involved infection were lost in London for several hours on May 9. The tubes had been stolen with the car of a young woman scientist, who was in a state of great alarm and distress until the news came that they had been recovered, with the car, after a frantic search by Scotland Yard at Islington. v Miss K. Chevassut, of Westminster Hospital, whose discoveries in connection with disseminated scierosis have created great interest in scien tific circles, left her car outside the University College Hospital while she talked for a few minutes with oue of the physicians. When she came out, the car had disappeared, She was very much distressed and alarmed for the fate of the tubes of cultures.

“If anyone were to sniff them even —I myself would never dare to do so —he would become infected,” said Miss Chevassut. They were stopped only by wads of cottonwool. If the thieves had taken the stopper out, or thrown them down an area, I would not like to have answered for the consequences.”

The car was specially fitted for carrying these tubes, and for carrying surgical instruments. The car, with the tubes intact, was found in the evening, abandoned in a street. The “Lancet,” in discussing Miss Chevassut’s discoveries, said that if the discovery was substantiated, it would "rank among the foremost achievements of bacteriology.”