Newspapers / Zebulon Record (Zebulon, N.C.) / April 9, 1937, edition 1 / Page 10
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Giving Science its first Germless , iii 11, jjjwlßMitt ffliiiii jraHM| ■M; Jk Jg| |L "4W j iiini i ili || i i I iil^BiMlßlir'''lr pp^ PIC ] By Dr. Frank Thone STANDARD thing for bacteri ologist or parasitologist to do, when he has a one-celled plant or animal suspected of mis- A chit votJS tendencies, is to try it on a guinea pig. These docile little martyrs of science give up their lives in thou sands every week, that our own lives Inay last the longer and be the more tree from aches and ills. »«Yet whenever a scientist With a cul ture of germs decides to “put it through a pig,” he is up against a dilemma. For his “pig” is already full of germs, in a most amazing variety, exercising effects so completely un- Jmowable by present methods of re search that the scientist simply has to ‘phut his eyes to them and pretend they pre not there at all. p Scientists are due to be relieved of JBiift dilemma very soon. A young Inember of the Notre Dame faculty, prdi. James A. Reyniers. has developed Bf elaborate mechanisms, and per a technique, that will bring pigs or any other experimental 5, within reason, into the world om any taint of microbic con tion, will keep them germ-free 1 their whole lives, and will even periMt germ-free parents to mate and |»riMy forth germ-free offspring, p Professor Reyniers start* with the tact, long known to biologists, that un born animals are usually germ-free. .They receive their initial contamina iUon while they are being born, and ppiib the first air tOey breathe, and in Prof. Reyniers and his assistant preparing the pregnant animal un der a glass enclosure. At left is the operating cage. Those at top and upper right are used in raising the germ-free animals. the first food they take. Bring them to birth in completely germ-free sur roundings, and they will remain inno cent of germs as long as you guard them •well. That sounds simple, but it is ter rifically difficult to turn into accom plished fact. Yet Professor Reyniers has turned the trick. Already he has reared, in his laboratory at the Uni versity of Notre Dame, more than 2000 germ-free guinea pigs, as well as germ free chicks, rats, mice, rabbits, cats, in sects, and several plant species. TX) get germ-free guinea pig infants ■*- from ordinary germ-infested moth ers, you cannot let them be born in the natural way. They would become con taminated at once. Therefore they must be brought into the world by means of the well-known Caesarean operation, performed under aseptic precautions that even human patients never experience. First, a pregnant female guinea pig known to be within two or three days of delivery is selected. All her hair is removed with a depilatory, for hair is notorious as a lurking-place for con taminating germs. She is scrubbed clean, disinfected, sealed in a sterile Cellophane-lined envelope, placed on /Vi (fl||^R^l! |hP the operating board. All of this is done under a glass case, with careful aseptic precautions. Then the real operation begins. It takes place in a specially constructed metal cylinder, with an opening under neath through which the animal can be introduced. Cellophane covers this opening also. On opposite sides of the cylinder are pairs of arm-size openings, each with a pair of long surgeons’ rubber gloves tightly gasketed in. Tins permits two operators to work, each of whom can watch through a glass-covered porthole on the upper side of the cylinder. The air inside is filtered free of germs, and the whole interior can be sterilized at any time by means of sprays admitted through permanently attached pipes. Everything is checked carefully for leaks before the operation starts, for a leak means contamination. When the anesthetized guinea pig has been thrust up through the trap in the bottom, and lies under the stretched sheet of transparent cellulose, Dr. Reyniers mak#s his first incision. In stead of scalpels, electric needles are used. Because they automatically ster ilize the tissue they separate, and stop bleeding. The edges of the protecting sheet are sealed to the incision. CWIFTLY the operators woik. They lift out the uterus, containing the litter of unborn young. They ©pen its side, removing the little animals one by one, each still enclosed in its protect ing envelope, known to scientists as the Guinea Pigs I -J Using: an electric cautery, within the term-free machine, the scientists make an incision through the Cello phane covering into the guinea pigi . . . Upper left, one of Dr. Itcy nier's germ-free guinea pigs. amnion, and absolutely germ-free. In turn each amnion is opened, the little guinea pig slipped out, its umbili cal cord clamped and severed, a germi cidal bath administered, normal breath ing stimulated if necessary. The little “pigs” have been born. At every stage during the operation, bacteriological tests are made: of the amnion as it is opened, of nose, mouth, all body openings of the young as they are brought forth. If signs of germ life appear at any stage, the whole la borious procedure is ruthlessly set down as unsuccessful, and a new expeiiment is begun. After the whole litter, usually three or four little guinea pigs, has been born, a final drastic test for germlessness is made. One of the newborn animals is instantly killed and its body reduced to hamburger in a meat-grinder atlached to the inside of the operating machine. Samples of this guinea pig hamburger are put into 22 tubes, each containing a different kind of germ food. If any germ is present anywhere in the animal, this test is calculated 1o show it up. If the “hambui gered” guinea pig passes this test, it is assumed that its brethren are all right also. Then the remainder of the litter is re moved, through an opening in the end of the operating cylinder, into a second cylinder somewhat like it, but fitted out as a rearing cage. Again all arr is made germ-free, and all water and food given to the young animals is kept rigidly sterile. They must be hand-fed, every hour, day and night, on a sterilized milk mix ture, during the first five or six days of their lives. Every day a bacteriologi cal test is made of every accessible body cavity. the end of several weeks another member of the litter is sacrificed on the altar of bacteriological precaution, via the meat grinder. If all these tests still show no germs, the remainder of the litter are removed into still another cylinder, the storage machine. There, still on a regimen of absolutely germ-free air, water, and food, the young guinea pigs grow up. At six months of age they are mature, ready for use in research experiments, or they can be mated for the production of germ-free young. Os course, if both parents are germ free, there is no likelihood that the mother will cause the contamination iA her own young at birth. The serious Caesarean operation can therefore be dispensed with and the young born in the natural way.
Zebulon Record (Zebulon, N.C.)
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April 9, 1937, edition 1
10
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