ii2 Master Minds of Modern Science 



who took a grave risk for the sacred cause of Science, for 

 he drank raw Thames water containing typhoid bacilli. 

 Experiments had proved that ' cultivated ' strains of the 

 microbe possessed great vitality, but tests with bacilli 

 taken direct from typhoid cases showed that these were 

 not so hardy. The ' wild ' microbe is not always easy to 

 obtain, but Dr Houston was able to get a supply from a 

 sufferer who had himself infected forty different persons. 

 The bacilli perished rapidly when placed in samples of 

 raw Thames water, but Dr Houston regarded the result 

 as a negative test and decided upon a positive one. He 

 therefore drank half a pint of the infected water, which 

 at a rough estimate contained two hundred and eighteen 

 million typhoid bacilli. We are happy to be able to add 

 that he was none the worse. 



Among the many queer experiments carried out for the 

 purpose of testing scientific theories was one conducted at 

 the London Hospital, where a medical student allowed 

 himself to be suspended by the heels from a hook in the 

 ceiling. Professor Leonard Hill had been conducting a 

 series of experiments on blood pressure, and wished to 

 discover how far the healthy human heart is able to 

 nullify the effect of gravity on the blood streams of the 

 body. 



Professor Hill said : 



When a healthy man stands upright the blood pressure in 

 the vessels of the neck is about equal to a column of one hundred 

 and twenty millimetres of mercury. The pressure in the 

 vessels of the lower leg is, however, much higher on account of 

 the actions of gravity on the vertical column of blood, and is 

 equal to one hundred and ninety millimetres of mercury. In 

 theory if a man is turned upside down the leg pressure should 

 fall to one hundred and twenty and that in the neck rise to 

 one hundred and ninety. To find out if this really did happen 

 we suspended a student for three minutes from the ceiling. 

 We found that, although the leg pressure dropped to about 



