Proteus OX19

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Proteus OX19 is a bacterium.

History

Dr. Eugeniusz Lazowski and Dr. Stanisław Matulewicz worked with Proteus OX19 during World War II in the small town of Rozwadów in Poland to keep Nazi Germany from taking over the town. The doctors began inoculating villagers with dead Proteus, rendering false positives in tests for typhus. When the blood samples of the townspeople were sent to the German authorities for testing, authorities were convinced that there was a typhus epidemic burning through Rozvadów. Two Polish doctors used Proteus OX19 to save hundreds of Poles.

Proteus OX19 in fiction

The 1979 Night Trains novel by Barbara Wood and Gareth Wootton is a fictionalized account of the Proteus story, with names of characters, locations, etc. altered.^[1]

References