The list of scientists working at Fort Detrick during and after World War II reads like a Who's Who in American Science. Their names are still held in high esteem among laureate scientists.
Dr. Charles Rush Phillips came to Camp Detrick in 1943 as a junior enlisted man but with academic credentials exceeding his low station in the military pecking order. His work with gaseous sterilization and decontamination techniques revolutionized applied science.
It was not unusual that announcement of his death in May 1987 would spark little public recognition of his lifetime of work. Like the work of his colleagues at Camp Detrick, the general public did not understand it. His obituary noted he "had been employed as a chemist at Fort Detrick for many years."
His work between 1943 and 1969 made it possible for scientists to have and maintain the tools they needed to develop medical knowledge about microorganisms. The result has been the development of vaccines for a variety of diseases and an understanding of how disease spreads.
Everett R. Hanel, Jr., who died in 1991, didn't retire after he left the Biological Laboratories in 1972. He became safety director for the National Cancer Institute's FCRDC at Fort Detrick and a valued consultant on biological safety matters for a number of organizations including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Hanel was interviewed in 1987 and explained the impact of Dr. Phillips' work.
"His work was not the same as the technical aspects of microorganisms . . . like important discoveries about such things as smallpox." Charlie's work was a real step forward in applied science.
"ethylene oxide is used enormously in the United States for medical supplies and equipment. It is just the type of sterilization that works for syringes, needles, pipets . . . in hospitals and laboratories for drug manufacturing."
Hanel said the McCormick Company had used ethylene oxide to kill insects on spices brought from India and Ceylon. Libraries had used it to kill silverfish, which ate up pages in books. "They didn't realize it was effective against microorganisms. Charlie wrote 20 or 30 publications on it. I have several folders on ethylene oxide and all of his work. His is still the basic work on sterilization and it is still applicable."
Hanel was assigned to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) when it developed the Lunar Receiving Laboratory. Astronauts were quarantined in the laboratory, which was built from plans developed at Fort Detrick. It included ethylene oxide chambers (for sterilization).
Dr. Riley D. Housewright, scientific director of Fort Detrick from 1956 to 1972, first met Dr. Phillips in 1943. He said Dr. Phillips did the "spade work" in a number of areas but was most widely known for his work in gaseous disinfection. "It allowed us to do things we couldn't do before," Housewright said. "That was his most prominent accomplishment.
William Patrick, who worked more than 37 years in Fort Detrick's laboratories, agreed that gaseous sterilization was a major advancement in science. ethylene oxide penetrated objects and could be used to sterilize anything from sensitive laboratory analytical equipment to large trucks. Patrick said it allowed equipment in so-called "hot labs" to be calibrated or repaired. Previous techniques ruined equipment for the most part.
Dr. Housewright said Dr. Phillips did extensive research on evaluation of mass and determined leakage, a concurrent project with his ethylene oxide studies. He also was one of the first to work on membrane filters. Dr. Housewright said the filters are widely used to trap materials, which cannot be heated and must be free of bacteria. Membrane filters are pliable and can be adjusted to meet the required "pore size." For example, they are used for removing unwanted materials from certain horse serums. Dr. Housewright said German scientists collaborated with Dr. Phillips at Fort Detrick after the war.
"He was certainly in the forefront of research on ethylene oxide," Patrick said. " We are just beginning to reap the benefits of our early '50s work [at Fort Detrick]. Dr. Phillips' work . . . came out of necessity. We [at Camp Detrick] had the mission in our minds, and in retrospect I believe we had a sense of the tremendous impact our work would have on science."
Dr. Housewright said, "It [ethylene oxide] had a problem of persistence . . . a residue. It might cause blisters if you wore treated shoes, for instance. There was a lot of little things about it. We had to learn to use it."
Dr. Phillips' work also was paramount in Fort Detrick spear- heading the application of ethylene oxide gas to sterilize delicate instruments and equipment inside a laboratory autoclave.
Kenneth Bartgis, who worked more than 15 years as a Medical Biological Laboratory Technician and an Aerobiological Engineering Technician, explained, "This prevented damage to such items by steam application, which an autoclave normally utilizes. Hospitals began to utilize ethylene oxide within smaller chambers to sterilize its delicate instruments and equipment."
Dr. Phillips attended Clemson University (South Carolina) and was a Reserve Officer Training Corps Cadet for 3 years. He was not eligible to receive a commission in the U.S. Army.
"I had a job as a teaching professor at Penn State," Dr. Phillips recalled, "and kept trying to enlist after the war started, but they kept turning me down for one thing or another. My blood pressure was never quite right. I volunteered for the draft and convinced the doctor to change a few numbers around . . . they took me."
He was first assigned to the Office of Price Administration, but through friends was reassigned to Camp Detrick where he arrived as a private with a Ph.D. in chemistry as credentials.
"They immediately assigned me to the division studying gaseous sterilization and decontamination," Dr. Phillips said. "Saul Kaye was the sergeant in the division-and let me know it."
There was "scattered information" about use of ethylene oxide, Dr. Phillips said. "The French Resistance had papers discussing it, but we couldn't get permission to get it. Instead, we got a copy of a German extract of it from a source in Switzerland.
"Then we had trouble getting ethylene oxide. We started with a small vial that was on the shelf. It worked well in our research, but when it was used up it took more than a month to get any more."
Dr. Phillips explained laboratory clothes had to be dipped in hypochloride and none of the clothes lasted more than three washings or dippings. "ethylene oxide did not weaken the fabric nor its seams, so it lasted longer and was effectively sterilized."
Dr. Phillips left Camp Detrick after the war and was discharged from the Army. He became an industrial rehabili-tation specialist for the United Nations Relief Association, part of the Marshall Plan.
He returned to Fort Detrick in 1947.
"No one had picked up on my work with ethylene oxide. I began working in Building 521 [now headquarters for Naval Medical Logistics Command]. We [Phillips and Kaye] first published our papers in 1949 using many of the reports we had written during World War II. The work was reassigned [in 1969] to Edgewood Arsenal [Maryland], so Saul and I dismantled the lab and sent it to Edgewood. I retired. The laboratory was never put together again."
He continued to serve as a consultant to several organizations, including Fort Detrick, up to his death. He was recognized by certain groups for his work, including one small cash award from a national foundation.