The Andromeda Strain Sparknotes

The Andromeda Strain

In Michael Crichton’s book, The Andromeda Strain, an unknown bacteria was found on a satellite sent by the military to space. This bacteria invaded the town of Piedmont, Arizona and killed all but two: a baby and an old man. A team of four men: Dr. Jeremy Stone, a scientist and the leader of Wildlife; Dr. Mark Hall, a surgeon; Dr. Charles Burton, a pathologist and professor at Baylor Medical School; and Dr. Peter Leavitt, a microbiologist that treats infectious diseases, worked at a secret government facility in Nevada called Project Wildfire to study the “Andromeda Strain,” and figure out what is killing the people in Piedmont. This story took place over a five day period.

The military sent a satellite to space to study

the upper atmosphere and collect organisms that could be used for warfare. The organism that was to be collected turned out to be deadly to those on Earth. The satellite was only in orbit for two days because it landed in Piedmont, Arizona. Two men searched for the satellite in Piedmont and discovered bodies strewn over Piedmont. Another scavenger plane dropped phosphorus bombs over the land and photographed the town. They saw a man in white robes checking on the town and looking at all of the dead people on the streets. Using the images taken of Piedmont, the two men determined that the people in the town died recently. Major Mancek, who was in the plane with the two men, called Project Wildfire, a government run facility in Nevada that was designed to create responses for extraterrestrial life that is carried on American spacecraft.
Project Wildfire was initiated and created a team of four men to study Piedmont and the bacteria that killed the people in the town. Dr. Jeremy Stone was a scientist and the leader of Wildlife; Dr. Mark Hall was a surgeon; Dr. Charles Burton was a pathologist and professor at Baylor Medical School; and Dr. Peter Leavitt was a microbiologist that treated infectious diseases. Stone and Burton were told to explore Piedmont while Hall and Leavitt were traveling to the Wildfire facility. Upon exploring Piedmont, they found that the bacteria killed everyone in the town, except a baby and an old man. All had died of rapid blood clotting, beginning at the lungs. Stone believed it was possible for extraterrestrial organisms to invade spacecraft and be brought back to Earth. The two survivors were brought to Wildlife for examination and the men hoped that upon studying them, the cause of the peoples’ death in Piedmont would be discovered.
When Stone, Hall, Burton, and Leavitt arrived to the Wildfire facility, they had to undergo five stages of decontamination. Each stage was for a different level of the facility and the higher the level, the more decontamination processes took place. Level 1 resembled the sterility of a hospital operating room. It was clean, but not decontaminated. Level 2 had minimal sterilization procedures involving a hexachlorophene methitol bath and a clothing change, which included a one hour delay. Level 3 had moderate sterilization procedures involving a total-immersion bath, UV irradiation with a two hour testing delay. In order to pass level 3, afebrile infections of UR and GU tracts and viral symptomatology took place. Level 4 had maximal sterilization procedures including four immersion baths of biocaine, monochlorophin, xantholysin, and prophyne. More UV and IR irradiation took place and a routine screening occurred including a six hour delay. Level 5 had redundant sterilization procedures, but there were no immersions or testing. Clothing had to be discarded two times per day and prophylactic antibiotics must be taken for forty-eight hours. The President issued Wildfire a nuclear device in case of contamination that would cause the facility to self-destruct.
On day 3, the men meet for a conference where they discuss the work of Rudolph Karp, a scientist who found bacteria inside of meteorites.

The bacteria that he discovered did not have a cell nucleus and its reproduction process was unknown. Though Karp’s work was destroyed in a lab explosion and no longer pursued, Stone and Leavitt were interested in how it could relate to the bacteria at Piedmont. Stone and Leavitt believed that bacteria could come from three sources: an organism from another planet or galaxy, bacteria that left Earth’s surface eons ago but remains in the upper atmosphere, and bacteria created by an Earth organism going to space and mutating into a different organism. The first source is improbable because though the bacteria could live in extreme conditions, it was not likely for bacteria to travel to another planet. Humans would have no immunity to bacteria in the second source and the bacteria would not be able to live with humans. The third source is the most probable because if bacteria did mutate in space, there is no way of knowing what it could do when it

mutated.
Next, the men tested to see if the bacteria found in the capsule is still active by testing it on animals, such as rats and monkeys. Both animals died instantaneously, which shows that the bacteria is still active and harmful to living things. The autopsy of both animals show that they died from coagulation of the blood, which is known as blood clotting. Stone and Leavitt studied the bacteria on the capsule and discover a green fleck, which is put on a petri dish to be studied and put in various conditions. They discovered that the bacteria is changing colors and mutating with each second. The bacteria divided into hexagonal shapes and Stone performed a microsurgery on it to determine whether it was a single bacteria or part of a large colony. The results from the black rock containing the green fleck showed that hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen made up the rock. The men question as to whether life outside of Earth can exist without proteins. All life on Earth requires enzymes to function. The structure of the black rock resembled a crystal and the men decided that it could live without amino acids or proteins.
The two survivors of Piedmont have something in common that allowed them to live.

The people in Piedmont died due to blood clotting beginning at the lungs. Dr. Hall examines the two patients and finds that the baby is perfectly healthy. The older man, Jackson, remained unconscious for the duration of the exam, but he soon woke up vomiting blood due to gastrointestinal bleeding. Upon further examination when Jackson is awake, Dr. Hall discovers that Jackson was anemic, which means that there is a decrease in the amount of red blood cells in the body. Jackson had been hospitalized the previous summer for stomach bleeding due to an ulcer. Jackson was advised to change his diet, but he refuses and takes aspirin for the pain, which increases the amount of bleeding from the ulcer. Jackson is also an alcoholic and overdosed on Sterno, which made his condition worse. Officer Willis in Utah suffered from a condition similar to Jackson’s and overdosed on aspirin and Sterno. Soon after, he went insane and killed several in a diner before killing himself.

Hall studied the autopsies of the rats and after talking with Jackson, he discovered that first blood coagulation occurs and causes a hemorrhage, which kills the person. If blood clotting did not kill the person, the bacteria attacked the brain, which caused hemorrhage and insanity causing them to kill themselves. The organism can live in a variety of conditions and that CO2 and ultraviolet radiation help it grow the most; it also converts

energy to matter. Soon the men realized that if an atomic bomb went off at Wildlife, it would help the organism grow and spread.
When the seal broke in the autopsy lab, Burton was trapped inside. He thought that the bacteria would cause his blood to clot and he would die. However, Dr. Hall discovered that rapid breathing would prevent the spread of the bacteria. The bacteria needs a perfect balance in its environment between acidic and basic; if the pH of the environment is out of the range that the bacteria grown, the bacteria will not spread. All oxygen is stopped to Burton when hall realized the rat in the cage is breathing normally and is not dead. The pH of the room is out of the range of the bacteria’s growth which is why Burton lived. The bacteria mutates so often that it was no longer harmful to living things.