i6o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Fifteen years ago Dr. J. C. Graham, 3 of Columbus, Ohio, carried 

 on a study of soiled paper money, to furnish data to be used as the 

 basis of a bill placed before Congress for a more frequent redemption 

 of damaged paper currency. He examined fourteen bills, simply 

 shaking them in 50 c.c. of distilled water and adding portions 

 (0.1 c.c.) of this wash fluid to gelatin, for plating. 



Agar was used twice, with resulting growth only once; but the 

 author presumes that not all microbes present developed, since many 

 pathogenic forms, especially Bacillus diphtheria? and the tubercle ba- 

 cillus, will not grow at a temperature much below that of the body, or 

 on the media used. He was able to recognize only Bacillus subtilis. 

 To determine the pathogenic characteristics, only two inoculations were 

 made; a twenty-four hour bouillon culture of an unknown bacillus 

 was injected subcutaneously, into a full-grown rabbit, with negative 

 results, excepting a slight rise of temperature. For the second inocu- 

 lation, the wash fluid from a bill was placed in the incubator for forty- 

 eight hours, and fifteen minims of this were injected into the peritoneal 

 cavity of a rabbit, with negative results. He usually found only two 

 or three species, but in one case claimed to have found five; three 

 bacilli, one of them a spore form, an ordinary micrococcus and a dip- 

 lococcus. One bill he estimated to have the enormous number of 

 901,320,000 bacteria upon it. He sums up his article by saying that 

 " Money may be a source of danger by transmitting diseases." 



Personally, I can not see that the object of Graham's study was 

 accomplished, for no data were given which could support a bill for a 

 more frequent redemption of our paper currency. The author himself 

 saw the faults of his experiments when he presumed that not all bac- 

 teria present developed, especially since the ones in which he was most 

 interested, the pathogenic forms, particularly, Bacillus diphtheria and 

 the tubercle bacillus, would not grow at a temperature much below that 

 of the body or on the media used; yet he did not attempt to overcome 

 these faults. 



In Bevista Medica de Bogota of July, 1904, 4 there is an article on 

 " The Spread of Infectious Diseases by Paper Money." The author 

 (his name was not given) suggests that the rapid increase of leprosy, 

 in a certain locality during the past three years, may be due to the 

 money in circulation, and he suggests a special currency for lepers. 

 A bacteriological study was made by macerating some bills (twenty) 

 in sterile, distilled water and allowing the wash to stand two or three 

 days in a cylinder. The sediment was pipetted off and smears of it 

 examined. The only germ identified was Bacillus subtilis, though 



3 "A Bacteriological Study of Soiled Paper Money," Columbus (O.) Med- 

 ical Journal, Vol. XI., 1892-93, p. 391. 



4 " Del Contagio par el papel moneda," Revista Medica de Bogota, Julis, 

 1904, No. 291, p. 355. 



