Monkey: A Folk Novel of China

113. How did they culture the virus? There were at least four different samples, what were they?

the hot zone

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"A civilian technician named Joan Rhoderick cultured the unknown agent from Monkey O53. She ground up a bit of the monkey's spleen with a mortar and pestle. That made sort of bloody mush. She dropped the mush into flasks that contained living cells from the kidney of a monkey. She also took some of the throat mucus from Monkey O53 and put it into a flask, and she took some of the monkey's blood serum and put it into another flask. Eventually she had a whole rack of flasks. She put them into a warmer (an incubator), held at body temperature-and hoped that something would grow."

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The Hot Zone