Word: germ
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There was not a political germ in the room. Secretary of State George C. Marshall looked at the representatives of 41 nations, including Russia, and remarked dryly: "Thank God, your purpose here, without recriminations, without undue argument, is solely to do good in the world." The 2,000 doctors, scientists and public health officials had gathered in Washington, D.C. to wage biological warfare against a common enemy, tropical disease...
...onion may be coming back into medical fashion. The Russians have discovered that onion and garlic vapors heal wounds (TIME, March 13, 1944). They called the germ-killing substance a phytoncide (meaning: a killer derived from plants). Now Food Chemist Edward F. Kohman has found that the active chemical agent in onions is a thioaldehyde, a close relative of the common antiseptic, formaldehyde. Chemist Kohman put raw onions through an ordinary household meat grinder, distilled the onion vapors, put them through a series of chemical tests. In a recent issue of Science, he reported finding about 1/20 of a gram...
...germ-killing thioaldehyde, Kohman said last week, probably does not exist as such in the onion. More likely, it is produced by the complicated enzyme activity that goes on in the onion when it is cut. Cooking would eliminate it completely; a boiled onion is no more good for a cold than a boiled turnip. But chewing a raw onion might help a cold (it would undoubtedly prevent spread of colds by keeping non-onion eaters away from the cold sufferer...
Under the electron microscope, the cold-causing agent appeared to be "characteristic particles ... of the same general size as viruses of the influenza type, but . . . readily distinguishable from them." The two physicians named the "germ" .V14A because it came from the first nasal washing of the 14th volunteer...
...supposed to work out control of germ warfare, too. It will get around to that when & if the Russians ever agree to atomic control...