Gruinard, Scotland: Anthrax Island in the western Highlands
Anthrax is now associated with the ongoing “war on terror”, following the bio-terrorism-by-post incidents in the US in 2001. But there have been scares about the disease closer to home, dating back to the second world war. The Scottish island of Gruinard — between Ullapool and Gairloch in the western Highlands — was the site of a second-world-war experiment with the bacteria. In 1942, amid fears that the war would escalate into a biological or chemical conflict, scientists from the government’s Porton Down laboratories decided to run tests on military anthrax. Their chosen site was Gruinard island — uninhabited, small and close to a military base at Loch Ewe. Sheep in particular retain anthrax spores — 19th-century textile workers lived in fear contracting “wool-sorter’s disease”. Thus 60 sheep were put in pens and exposed first to anthrax spores, then to anthrax dropped by plane to simulate a military attack. The sheep died and were interred in a cave. Even after the war ended, no people were allowed on the isle, because anthrax is a highly durable spore. Dubbed “Anthrax Island”, Gruinard became a sinister presence. Decontamination began in 1986, and a flock of sheep that were moved there didn’t die.
In April 1990, Gruinard was declared anthrax-free. But it has yet to become a tourist attraction. Not surprising when one considers the effects of contact with anthrax spores: internal bleeding, blood poisoning, fever, respiratory pressure and, ultimately, death.
FROM THE BOFFINS
Inside the strange world of academic research
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Scientists at the Technical University of Denmark persuaded eight men to sit alone for a whole hour in rooms refrigerated to 10C. Some wore wet underwear and some dry. Their skin and rectal temperatures were checked every minute, and their shivering was recorded. The result? The men in wet underwear were colder and less comfortable than the ones in dry underwear.
BORN ON THE SAME DAY
Two historic sexual shockers: one birth date
King Edward VIII and Alfred C Kinsey, the American sexologist, both popped out of the womb on June 23, 1894, and by the 1930s they were both scandalising the world — Edward as the king who dared to leave the British throne for the divorcee Wallis Simpson, and Kinsey as the “deviant” who conducted no-holds-barred research into sexual behaviour. Kinsey railed against Victorian attitudes towards sex — while, ironically, Edward was the product of Queen Victoria’s grandson, George V, having sex.
Kinsey would have approved of Edward’s romantic abdication: in his lectures, he professed that sexual attraction served to underpin rather than undermine society. As well as having the same birthday, the two men shared a wedding anniversary: June 3 (1921 for Kinsey; 1937 for Kingsy). When they weren’t busy changing the world, both chaps liked a nice spot of gardening, as well as playing the piano — although Edward was also intrigued by the Pianola, which plays tunes automatically (being a royal, he still liked to have everything done for him). Just as they had married 16 years apart, so they died 16 years apart — Kinsey in 1956 and Edward in 1972 — which may or may not say something profound about matrimony.