Elizabeth R. Griffin, a 22-year-old primate researcher, was careful to follow the precautions intended to shield her from the diseased animals she handled. She always wore gloves and a mask, and she was usually separated from the primates by a mesh cage.

Death found its way past her defenses, literally in the blink of an eye.

Six weeks ago, Miss Griffin, who planned to be a doctor, was helping to move a caged rhesus monkey infected with the herpes B virus at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center here, when the animal flung a tiny drop of fluid -- perhaps urine or feces -- at her face.

It struck her in the eye. On Wednesday, paralyzed and weakened, she died of complications from herpes B, which is common in primates but rare and deadly, 70 percent of the time, in humans.

The consequences of that animal-to-human contact, and the almost freakish way it caused Miss Griffin's death, seem lifted from Hollywood. Unlike the movies, however, there is no public health risk here, researchers said, just a single misfortune.