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time, where social conditions permit, among the simple- 

 minded so-called savages, among physicians, nurses, and sani- 

 tary inspectors, and in such others to whom perpetuity seems 

 desirable, one may produce temporary immunity to plague by 

 vaccination with dead or living attenuated cultures of B pestis. 



DECEMBER 1, 1913, began like every other day — the 

 usual set of "specimens" had collected in the ice-box 

 and the usual set of calls for "pathologic consultation" lay on 

 Wherry's desk. Among the latter, Derrick T Vail, chief of staff 

 in the ophthalmic division of Cincinnati's general hospital 

 wished his look upon an eye case that had gone wrong. The 

 meat cutter's left orb had reddened November twenty-first 

 and by the twenty- fourth had so swelled that he needed a 

 doctor. Some ten small ulcers punctuated the lining of his eye- 

 lids; but the man was so sick all over that more than these 

 had to be considered. Things were spreading, too, that was 

 plain, for the lymph gland in front of his ear was tender and 

 before the week was out all the similar glands in his neck and 

 arm pit followed suit. Now he was very sick, looked it, and 

 had high fever. To make things worse, a lot of small boils 

 appeared about his temple. Because he was a butcher and so 

 had doings with animals, glanders was suspected. All it needed 

 to clinch the thought was Wherry. Wherefore he appeared — 

 with his platinum needle to make many smears and more cul- 

 tures. Well, it wasn't glanders ; nor was it any other common 

 garden variety of microorganism that was doing the mischief. 

 Wherry would have discovered anything like that right away. 

 As a matter of fact all his looking and staining were in vain. 

 Worse yet, nothing grew on all those culture media that he 

 had inoculated and dragged back to his inner laboratory — and 

 he knew how to tease the tenderest of this world's creatures 

 into growth. At this point any ordinary bacteriologist would 

 have called it a day, closed his ledger and next morning 

 "reported": cultures sterile. The situation is repeated daily. 

 To these men negative findings become proof, even, that here, 

 thank God, is a pathological process not infectious in origin; 

 something due to the dissolute or unchristian life of the 

 stricken, perhaps. Such report comforts the doctor, too. If 



