Rickettsia – typhus-causing bacteria Typhus-spreading body<unk>  The development of the typhus vaccine involved several stages. First, the lice larvae had to be bred and then fed on human blood. Once they matured, they were removed from the<unk> s, held down in a clamp machine especially designed by Weigl, and anally injected with the strain of the typhus bacteria. At that point the infected<unk>  had to be fed human blood for about five more days. This stage of the production process carried the greatest risk to the human<unk>  of contracting the disease. Weigl and his staff tried to prevent the danger by heavily vaccinating the<unk> s before hand. Once the<unk>  was sufficiently infected, it was removed from the human<unk> , killed in a solution of phenol, and then dissected. The contents of the<unk>  abdomen (its feces) was removed and then ground up into a paste. The paste was then made into the typhus vaccine. The feeding was done through the use of specially-constructed small wooden boxes, 4 cm by 7 cm, developed by Weigl. The boxes were sealed with paraffin on the top which prevented the lice from escaping, and the underside consisted of a screen made of a fabric sieve, adopted by Weigl from sieves that were used by local peasants to separate wheat husks from the seeds. A typical box contained 400 to 800 lice larvae which would mature as the feeding took place. The sieve bottom allowed the lice to stick out their heads and feed on the human flesh. A standard feeding period took thirty to forty-five minutes, and was repeated with the same lice colony for twelve days. Usually, an individual<unk>  would accommodate from 7 to 11 boxes (of 400 to 800 lice each) on his or her leg, per feeding session. Typically men would place the boxes on their calves, to minimize the discomfort of the bites, while women<unk> s placed them on their thighs, so that the bite marks could be covered up by a skirt. A nurse had to watch over the feeding process as the lice would feed beyond the point of being gorged on the blood and could burst if left on the human flesh for too long. Other dangers that employment at the institute involved, in addition to the contraction of typhus, concerned allergic reactions to the vaccine or asthma attacks because of the<unk>  feces dust.
Louse-feeder
Poster child
Pedestrian
Natural reservoir
Litter 
Post-hospitalist
Florida shuffle
Specific-pathogen-free