Word: botulin
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Then that night Mike Wallace waltzes up grimly to tell us about CBW warfare. I saw this one. I sat there (waiting for Shanghai Express of course) watching all these flashes of botulin and anthrax, hearing them described as more humane than bullets and bombs. A liver-spotted general emeritus told me how germs give me (us-US) a bonus area of death, and how we had germs because the Russians had germs, and how we would like to fall back on gems if that would prevent nuclear holocaust. At the end of all of this Mike lowered his script...
Treatment is just as handicapped. Since five types of botulin bacteria produce different brands of poison, five kinds of antitoxin are needed. Only two are produced in the U.S., by a single company (Lederle Laboratories). "If I find a case of Type E botulism," Dr. Petty said, "I'll have to send to Denmark or Japan for the antitoxin...
Breath Control. Anyone who consumes a small amount of botulin-contaminated food develops double vision, photophobia, giddiness and sometimes nausea. Muscle spasm makes swallowing painful or impossible. Recovery takes weeks. A bigger dose usually causes death by knocking out the central nervous system's breathing control...
Limburger research got going ten years ago when a San Francisco bachelor died of botulism after gourmandizing on a jar of cheese spread. The National Cheese Institute wanted to learn how to prevent such deaths, which are caused by microbes that sometimes get into spreads and make botulin, the deadliest natural poison known. The University of Chicago's Food Research Institute took on the job, assigned Polish-born Microbiologist Nicholas Grecz to work on it. Grecz was led to Limburger because, as early as the 1880s, Limburger-type cheeses had been observed never to cause food poisoning. Nobody knew...