Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/325

 "This is my plan for new work. I think you'll find it includes most of your suggestions."

"Huh!" Gottlieb ran through it and snorted, "Why have you not planned to propagate it on dead staph? That is most important of all."

"Why?"

Gottlieb flew instantly to the heart of the jungle in which Martin had struggled for many days: "Because that will show whether you are dealing with a living virus."

Martin was humbled, but Gottlieb beamed:

"You haf a big thing. Now do not let the Director know about this and get enthusiastic too soon. I am glad, Martin!"

There was that in his voice which sent Martin swanking down the corridor, back to work—and to not sleeping.

What the X Principle was—chemical or germ—he could not determine, but certainly the original Principle flourished. It could be transmitted indefinitely; he determined the best temperature for it and found that it did not propagate on dead staphylococcus. When he added a drop containing the Principle to a growth of staphylococcus which was a gray film on the solid surface of agar, the drop was beautifully outlined by bare patches, as the enemy made its attack, so that the agar slant looked like moth-eaten beeswax. But within a fortnight one of the knots of which Gottlieb warned him appeared.

Wary of the hundreds of bacteriologists who would rise to slay him once his paper appeared, he sought to make sure that his results could be confirmed. At the hospital he obtained pus from many boils, of the arms, the legs, the back; he sought to reduplicate his results—and failed, complete. No X Principle appeared in any of the new boils, and sadly he went to Gottlieb.

The old man meditated, asked a question or two, sat hunched in his cushioned chair, and demanded:

"What kind of a carbuncle was the original one?"

"Gluteal."

"Ah, den the X Principle may be present in the intestinal contents. Look for it, in people with boils and without."

Martin dashed off. In a week he had obtained the Principle from intestinal contents and from other gluteal boils, finding an especial amount in boils which were "healing of themselves"; and he transplanted his new Principle, in a heaven of