Word: coliform
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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From birth to death, every normal person carries in his bowels billions of rod-shaped micro-organisms which the doctors call coliform bacteria. Usually these little "bugs" do no harm; in fact, their presence is considered normal. But every now & then, infants dying of epidemic diarrhea are found to harbor coliform bacteria which seem to be abnormal. Last week, every baby born in Port Huron Hospital, Mich., and every patient admitted, was being tested for a suspected killer of this type which had been isolated there, for the first time...
Desperate hospital officials called in Dr. Albert E. Heustis, Michigan's Health Commissioner. Dr. Heustis and his staff sent to Scotland and Denmark for samples of a peculiarly virulent strain, previously reported only from Europe and catalogued by Danish experts as O-111, of the normally harmless coliform bacteria. An identical form was found in the bowels of 90% of Port Huron's infected babies...