http://41loveletters.com/1934/08/15/letter-6/ R. H. Swinney to Ruth Erlanger, 1934 Tue, 08 Feb 2011 15:43:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://41loveletters.com/1934/08/15/letter-6/comment-page-1/#comment-2 C Sun, 01 Oct 2006 07:47:45 +0000 http://www.43loveletters.com/1934/08/15/letter-6/#comment-2 I gather the fellow in the deep end was <a href="http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/oral/win2/MuckenfussRS.html" title="A Photo of Dr. Ralph S. Muckenfuss" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow">Dr. Ralph S. Muckenfuss</a>, later the founding director of the <a href="http://www.phri.org" title="PHRI.org" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow">Public Health Research Institute</a>, who would've been quite well known at the time for his work in isolating the "St. Louis" strain of encephalitis in the wake of the city's epidemic of 1933. Muckenfuss' work apparently involved infecting the St. Louis zoo's entire primate collection (see <a href="http://www.asm.org/branch/brmo/History.htm" title="The story of the St. Louis Encephalitis Epidemic... about 2/3rds down the page" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow"><em>DIVISION of INFECTIOUS DISEASES, DEPARTMENT MEDICINE, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL of MEDICINE</em></a> from the archives of the Missouri Branch of the American Society for Microbiology). Explains the monkey bite, though in light of his mashing on the widow it could be seen as a very ... convenient accident. I gather the fellow in the deep end was Dr. Ralph S. Muckenfuss, later the founding director of the Public Health Research Institute, who would’ve been quite well known at the time for his work in isolating the “St. Louis” strain of encephalitis in the wake of the city’s epidemic of 1933. Muckenfuss’ work apparently involved infecting the St. Louis zoo’s entire primate collection (see DIVISION of INFECTIOUS DISEASES, DEPARTMENT MEDICINE, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL of MEDICINE from the archives of the Missouri Branch of the American Society for Microbiology). Explains the monkey bite, though in light of his mashing on the widow it could be seen as a very … convenient accident.

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