Poisoned Air Page 3

men on duty. When he had gone the rounds of the ward he enteredthe morgue and carefully examined the bodies of the men who lay there.

  "Have you performed any autopsies?" he asked.

  "Not yet."

  "Have you the authority?"

  "On the approval of the commanding officer."

  "Please secure that approval at once. Have all lights taken out of theoperating room and the windows shaded. I want to work under red light.We must examine the lungs of these men at once. With all due respectto your medical knowledge, Captain, I am not convinced that these mendied of pneumonia."

  "Neither am I, Doctor, but that is the best guess I could make. I'llhave things fixed up for you right away."

  * * * * *

  Dr. Bird stepped to the telephone and called the laboratory. When, inhalf an hour, Captain Murdock announced that he was ready to proceed,Davis had arrived with an ultra-microscope and other apparatus whichthe doctor had telephoned for.

  "Did you arrange about the horses, Davis?" asked Dr. Bird.

  "Yes, sir. They will be up here as soon as the trucks can bring them."

  "Good enough. We'll start operating."

  An hour later, Dr. Bird straightened up and faced the puzzled medicalofficer.

  "Captain," he said, "your diagnosis is faulty. With one possibleexception, the lungs of these men are free from pneumonicocci. On theother hand there is a peculiar aspect of the tissues as though a verypowerful antiseptic solution had been applied to them."

  "Hardly an antiseptic, Doctor; wouldn't you say, rather, a cauterizingagent."

  Dr. Bird bent again over the ultra-microscope.

  "Are you familiar with the work done by Bancroft and Richter atCornell University last November and December?" he asked.

  "No, I can't say that I am."

  "They were working under a Heckscher Foundation grant studying justhow antiseptic solutions destroy bacteria. It has always been heldthat some chemical change went on, but this theory they disproved. Itis a process of absorption. If enough of the chemical adheres to theliving bacterium, the living protoplasm thickens and irreversiblycoagulates. It resembles a boiling without heat. I have seen some oftheir slides and the appearance is exactly what I see in this tissue."

  Captain Murdock bent over the microscope with a new respect for Dr.Bird in his face.

  "I agree with you, Doctor," he said. "This tissue certainly looks asthough it had been boiled. It is certainly coagulated, as I canplainly see now that you point it out to me. You believe, then, thatit is a simple case of gassing?"

  "If so, it was done by no known gas. I have studied at EdgewoodArsenal, and I am familiar with all of the work done by the ChemicalWarfare Service in gases. No known gas will produce exactly thisappearance. It is something new. Carnes, have those horses beenbrought up yet?"

  "I'll see, Doctor."

  "If they are, bring one here."

  * * * * *

  In a few moments the body of a dead horse was dragged into theoperating room and Dr. Bird attacked it with a rib saw. He soon laidthe lungs open and dragged them from the body. He cut down the middleof one of the organs and shaved off a thin slice which he placed underthe lens of a powerful binocular microscope.

  "Hello, what the dickens is this?" he exclaimed.

  With a scalpel and a delicate pair of tweezers he carefully separatedfrom the lung tissue a tiny speck of crystalline substance whichglittered under the red light in the operating room. He carefullytransferred it to a glass slide and put it under a microscope with ahigher magnification.

  "Rhombohedral regular," he mused as he examined it. "Colorless,friable, and cleaving in irregular planes. What in thunder can it be?Have you ever seen anything like this in a lung, Murdock?"

  The medical officer bent over the microscope for a long time before heshook his head with a puzzled air.

  "I never have," he admitted.

  "Then that's probably what we're looking for. Start slicing every lungin this place and look for those crystals. Save them and put them inthis watch glass. If we can get enough of them, we may be able tolearn something. Carnes, get the rest of those horses in here and openthem up."

  Two hours of careful work netted them a tiny pile of the peculiarcrystals. Some had come from the lungs of the dead animals and somefew from the lungs of the dead soldiers. Dr. Bird placed the crystalsin a glass bottle which he covered with layer after layer of blackpaper.

  "Get me more of those crystals if you can find them, CaptainMurdock," he said, "and in any case, leave the bodies here forfurther study. Davis and I will go to the laboratory and try to findout what they are. Carnes, hasn't Miss Andrews showed up yet?"

  "No, Doctor."

  "Locate her on the telephone if you can and tell her not to botherabout anything except the autopsy reports and to get them here asquickly as possible. Let me know when you have that done."

  * * * * *

  In a dark room of the photographic laboratory, Dr. Bird removed theblack wrappings from the bottle. He dropped a few of the crystals in atest tube and added distilled water. The water assumed a pink tinge asthe blood with which the crystals were covered dissolved, but thecrystals themselves did not change. They rose and floated on thesurface of the water.

  "Insoluble in water, Davis," commented the doctor. "Better wash thelot and then we'll get after the ultimate analysis. Whether we'll beable to make a proximate is doubtful in view of the small amount ofsample we have. It's dollars to doughnuts that it's some carboncompound."

  He heated a few of the washed crystals in a watch glass. Suddenlythere was a sharp crack and the material disappeared. Dr. Bird thrusthis nose toward the glass and sniffed carefully.

  "The dickens!" he muttered. "Davis, have I got a cold or do you smellgarlic?"

  "Faintly, Doctor."

  "I have a hunch. Fill a gasometer with purified argon and we'llintroduce a few of these crystals and explode them. If I'm right--"

  Half an hour later he straightened up and examined the tube of the gasanalysis apparatus with which he was working. The level of the gasshowed it to be of the original volume but the liquid under the argonwas stained a light brown.

  "It's impossible, Davis," cried the doctor, "but nevertheless, it'strue. Expose some of those crystals to strong sunlight and see whathappens."

  The crystals rapidly disappeared as the light from a sun-ray arc fellon them.

  "It's true, Davis," cried the doctor, positive awe in his voice. "Keepthis strictly under your hat for the present. Now that you know whatwe're up against, fix up a couple of masks and air-collectingapparatus. That stuff will show up again in the swamp to-night and Iam going down there to collect some samples. I'll telephone thehospital now."

  * * * * *

  As Dr. Bird emerged from the dark room, Carnes hurried up with aworried expression.

  "The devil's to pay, Doctor," was his greeting.

  "All right, stall him off for a minute while I telephone the hospital.I think I can save some of those poor fellows up there."

  Carnes paced the floor in anxiety while Dr. Bird got Captain Murdockon the telephone.

  "Bird talking, Murdock," he said crisply. "How much deep therapy X-rayapparatus have you got up there?... Too bad.... Well, at least you cangive every patient a four-minute dose of maximum intensity and repeatin an hour or so. Keep them under sun-ray arcs as much as you can. Beready for a fresh attack of the same epidemic to-night. As fast as thepatients come in, give them a five-minute dose of X-rays and thensun-rays. Do you understand?... All right, then."

  "Just a moment more, Carnes," he went on as he called the office ofthe commanding officer. "Colonel Wesley, this is Dr. Bird. I thinkthat I have some light on your problem. You must anticipate anothermore virulent attack than you had last night, probably as soon as thesun goes down. Will you arrange to have everyone removed from theswamp area before that time? Never mind trying to g
uard the place;you'll just lose more lives if you do. Warn everyone to keep insidethe buildings with all doors and windows closed tight. Get all thewomen and children and everyone else who isn't needed here off thepost before dark. Send them to Aberdeen or Baltimore or anywhere....No, sir, the sick had better not be moved. I think they will be saferin the hospital than they would be elsewhere.... Yes, sir, that's all.Thank you."

  * * * * *

  Dr. Bird turned to the waiting Carnes.

  "Did you locate Miss Andrews?" he asked.

  "No, I didn't and that is what I want to talk to you about. I juststarted to telephone when a hurry call came through from