"The scripts are records of the biological feature study on and virulence test of anthrax bacillus," said Ma Jiayu, head of the bacteria research in northeast China's Harbin Medical Sciences University, after scrutinizing the pages.

The bacterial experiments had been done from September 24, 1931 to August 5, 1940, according to the scripts totaling 23 pages with tables. Eleven of the pages were written in Japanese and the rest in English.

It is the first time that China found the original records of the germ tests done by Japanese invaders during World War II, said Jin Chengmin, vice-curator of a Harbin-based museum on crimes of Unit 731, a notorious branch of Japan's Kwantung Army for making germ warfare materials that were tested on more than 10,000 people in China during WWII.

The Japanese scripts were of the experiment contents and various data relating to how to cultivate germs and their biological nature. Along the tables were calculation process and data written with pencil.

Objects chosen for the experiments included cattle, horses, sheep, guinea pigs, and white rats. "Human" was listed under the third item of the experiment on blood cell damage among various animals.

The scripts were written with dark blue ink or pencil on 23 pages printed with words of Manchurian Empire Government, a puppet regime namely governed by Puyi, the last emperor of China, during September 1931 to August 1945.

The materials used in the experiments were animals suspected of being victims of anthrax, said Professor Ma, noting that one experiment was based on red blood cells of human beings.

The professor said that anthrax bacillus can easily attack vegetarian animals and kill them within two to three days. The germ's infection can last for 20 to 30 years. Human beings will be infected if contacting the sick animals and the death rate is extremely high.

She said that the experiments recorded in English were about metatrophic vibrio. Some of the vibrio could lead to cholera, or the Holla disease.

All the objects and the elementary body of the germs were from "Dalian, Fengtian, Mudanjiang, Gaiping, and Haicheng," according to the scripts. The cities are all located in northeast China.

Jin believed that the scripts are possibly part of the experiment records kept by Unit 100, a Japanese military troop based in Changchun, capital of today's Jilin Province, which was focused on developing the germ weapon, anthrax, bacillus in the 1930s- 40s.

"We have never seen an original Japanese script which is as clear and specific as this," he said.

An earlier report said that a Japanese professor happened to discover over 900 pages of confidential documents about the germ experiments done in northeast China in 1940.

The documents disclosed that Unit 731 was assigned to study germ weaponry on humans in Harbin, and Unit 100 to study its effect on animals.

The Japanese aggressors engaged, for the fist time, in germ warfare along the Sino-Mongolian border in 1939, which caused the death of many horses and soldiers from the Soviet-Mongolian army.

Japan later made use of its "lab achievements" several times in China leading to 200,000 casualties.

(Xinhua 11/30/2000)