Word: specimens
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...soft spots of Rick in Casablanca or the nervousness of the hunted criminal in Petrified Forest. Bogart is nothing more nor less than leather-skinned in this role: cool, jaded, manipulative. Dashiell Hammit included a last scene in his book during which the reader really grasps what a contemptible specimen Spade is. But Huston thankfully understood that a film version could dispense with this redeeming moralism especially at the expense of Bogart's persona. A remarkably sophisticated insight for a director so seemingly wet behind the ears...
...fire-and-brimstone freak posing as mother in the case of one Carrie White. This specimen of faith-gone-fanatic seems straight out of Jonathan Edwards's congregation, dividing her time between spreading the Good Word among the suburban heathen and tormenting her daughter at the slightest hint of sin rearing its ugly head within Carrie. Mrs. White (played by Piper Laurie) has plainly left her mark on Carrie (played by Sissy Spacek); naive almost beyond belief, Carrie is utterly traumatized by the experience of her first period in the gym shower (as a high school senior, no less...
...most sophisticated techniques is the fluorescent antibody test, which can be used for many types of infectious disease. A specimen (it may be liquid, a thin slice of tissue or a fecal smear) is put on a slide. Then the technicians add a mixture of antibodies (from the blood serums of animals or of patients who have recovered from known diseases), tagged with a fluorescent substance. If any of the antibodies have had a "charge effect," the equivalent of a magnetic attraction, joining a virus or one of the bacteria, some of the antibody mixture will glow under ultraviolet light...
...quickest and most dramatic tests of all is for certain classes of virus that can be identified by their size and shape. It may take no more than three hours to prepare a specimen for Electron Microscopist Frederick Murphy to magnify up to 200,000 times. If he has caught his prey, its picture can be thrown onto a screen for a roomful of epidemiologists to see. Last week Dr. Murphy prepared such a specimen, and CDC Director David Sencer asked him: "Where is your picture?" A frustrated Murphy replied, "The picture is blank." Dr. Sencer then admitted...
With failure following failure the doctors have now turned to toxicological testing. For that they use a gas chromatograph, which heats a specimen until it vaporizes. When a bright light is shone through the vapor and passed through a prism, it yields a distinctive spectrum. Yet further tests will be run with an atomic spectrometer, which searches for deadly heavy metals like mercury and lead. A shotgun approach like this, says Sencer, should disclose whether "there are chemicals you would not expect to find in human tissue." If such chemicals can be found, the detectives may have their solution...