''Proteus'' OX19 is a strain of the ''

Proteus vulgaris ''Proteus vulgaris'' is a rod-shaped, nitrate-reducing, indole-positive and catalase-positive, hydrogen sulfide-producing, Gram-negative bacterium that inhabits the intestinal tracts of humans and animals. It can be found in soil, water, and ...

'' bacterium.

History

In 1915, Arthur Felix and Edward Weil discovered that ''Proteus'' OX19 reacted to the same human immune antibodies as

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...

. Other ''Proteus'' strains were similarly used to create reagents for other rickettsiae diseases, thus resulting in the commercial Weil-Felix antibody-agglutination test.

Use in fake epidemic in Poland

Drs. Eugeniusz Lazowski and his medical-school friend Stanisław Matulewicz were practicing in the small town of Rozwadów in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Dr. Matulewicz realized that since ''Proteus vulgaris'' strain OX19 was used to manufacture the then-common Weil-Felix antibody-agglutination test for

, inoculating villagers with dead Proteus would cause a false positive result without causing any disease. When the blood samples of the townspeople were sent to the German authorities for testing, authorities were convinced a typhus epidemic was raging in Rozwadów, and the area was avoided by the Germans, saving thousands of Poles.

In fiction

The novel 1979 ''Night Trains'', by

Barbara Wood Barbara Wood (born January 30, 1947, in Warrington (Lancashire, England) is an American writer of historical romance novels. Her family moved to California, where she grew up. In 2002, she received the Corine Literature Prize The Corine – ...

and Gareth Wootton, is a fictionalized account of the ''Proteus'' story, with details altered.

References

External links

* * {{cite web , url=http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/eugene.htm , accessdate=2008-04-07 , title=Fake Epidemic Saves a Village from Nazis , work=HolocaustForgotten.com Bacterial diseases Polish resistance during World War II