Word: bacillus
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...though not as extensive. In London, Birmingham and Manchester 56,700 high school children of 14 to 15½ took part: 13,300, who reacted negative to the tuberculin test, were left unvaccinated as controls; 14,100 more received BCG vaccine; 6,700 got another type of vaccine, vole bacillus.* Another 22,600 children, all of whom showed positive in tuberculin tests, were left unvaccinated as a second group of controls for comparison...
...public-health workers met in Atlantic City, NJ. half a century ago to found the National Tuberculosis Association, the "white plague" was the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. Each year it killed 188 out of every 100,000 people. Though Robert Koch had isolated the bacillus, little was known about how it infected mankind, or why the disease pursued such various courses. There was no vaccination against it and no drug treatment; X rays for diagnosis were still primitive, and medical thinking was full of superstitions about "hereditary taint." The cure consisted of raw eggs, milk...
...founders) gathered in Atlantic City for the soth anniversary meeting of the N.T.A., the TB picture seemed radically different. The disease has slid from first to ninth place among causes of U.S. deaths, and the rate has dropped to 16 per 100,000. There is a vaccine, BCG (Bacillus of Calmette and Guérin), which is fairly effective under some conditions. There are at least three wonder drugs-isoniazid, streptomycin & PAS-which can arrest a majority of TB infections, if not cure them. And with the aid of these drugs, daring surgery can save many patients...
...mind, it is of utmost importance to learn more about the fundamentals; how tuberculosis gets its start, and the factors which determine whether the victim will have a mild infection or "galloping consumption." Too little is still known, he complains, of the life processes of the bacillus or the mechanics of its virulence. And, amid its obvious ravages, no man can say why so many people enjoy a high degree of natural immunity to its invasion...
Tricky Water. Cincinnati has been a center for U.S. public-health studies since 1913, when health engineers settled in an old downtown mansion to study Ohio River pollution. Water-borne typhoid fever, raging in the Ohio Valley in those days, was their chief concern. Nowadays, the typhoid bacillus is "literally no longer a problem" to Dr. Leslie A. Chambers, research director of the center. His staff must now tackle the far more complex problems of contamination of both water and food by viruses and fungi, synthetic chemicals and radioactivity...