NATURAL SCIENCE 



A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress 



No. 82 — Vol. XIII — DECEMBER 1898 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 



Bubonic Plague in Vienna 



The occurrence of fatal cases of plague in connection with the 

 Bacteriological Laboratory at the General Hospital in Vienna has 

 attracted much comment from the press, and is not without its 

 lessons. It may appear surprising to some that such incidents are 

 not of more frequent occurrence. As a matter of fact they are very 

 rare, and this for two reasons. The majority of pathogenic organisms 

 soon lose much of their virulence when cultivated for any length of 

 time outside the body ; some become harmless in a few days, others 

 not for weeks or months, while there are bacteria which seem to 

 retain their pathogenic powers almost indefinitely. In most cases 

 virulence may be restored by suitable passage through the animal 

 body. The chief reason, however, for the rarity of accidents lies in 

 the routine precautions taken in the laboratory when dealing with 

 pathogenic organisms. Such precautions are the first lessons im- 

 pressed upon the student ; for they are necessary, not only as a 

 safeguard to the experimenter, but in order to preserve the cultures 

 themselves from contamination. Carelessness shows itself at once 

 in impurity arising in the cultures, and although the carelessness 

 which leads to this is not necessarily the same carelessness which 

 contaminates the worker's hands, yet both spring from the same 

 cause, and one is rarely present without the other. Cultivations are 

 carried out on moist media, and micro-organisms growing on such 

 media do not escape into the air and do not seem to constitute any 

 source of danger by inhalation. In the desiccated condition this is 

 not so, but cultures are usually discarded and destroyed before they 

 become dried up, and, moreover, drying is fatal to many kinds of 

 bacteria. In all laboratories the beginner acquires, or ought to 

 acquire, the technique necessary for the protection of himself and 

 his cultures by practice upon harmless organisms. Once acquired, 

 it becomes in time practically a reflex action, and the fear of infec- 

 tion is scarcely present to the mind. 



Nevertheless there will always be reckless persons, and accidents 

 will at times occur. Some organisms are especially virulent and 

 dangerous to work with, for instance, the bacillus of glanders. Even 



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