INFANTILE PARALYSIS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 135, 10 June 1927, Page 14

INFANTILE PARALYSIS.

ITS TREATMENT.

INFECTION FROM ANIMALS? (From Our Own Corresponudent.) LONDON, April 29. The heavy incidence of infantile paralysis in New Zealand makes the report of a lecture given at the Manchester College of Nursing, by Dr. Lapage, of special interest to the Dominion. Dr. Lapage said that infantile paralysis, when not seen in its earliest stages, was often mistaken for meningitis or sleepy sickness. Several of the cases he had seen were of children who had just returned from some holiday resort, but as holidays were taken at the time of the year when infantile paralysis was most liable to break out there might be no connection between the two circumstances. Prolonged exertion or over-tiredness, as from a long railway journey might also cause the full development of the disease in cases where it might otherwise have ben abortive, producing symptoms no more serious than those of influenza.

Treatment of the disease was divided into three stages. For four or five weeks complete and absolute rest was essential. After that came a period of partial rest for about two years. Patients often tried to get back to their ordinary activities after two or three months; this was quite wrong. In the third and stationary stage operations might be performed in the endeavour to improve deformities.

Speaking of the measures to be taken to prevent the disease from spreading, Dr. Lapa?e said it was doubtful whether the patients themselves communicated infection so miipli a« tho«e who attendea them. Abortive cases, where the symptoms were mild, were nevertheless carriers of the disease. Epidemics of infantile paralysis usually occurred during the latter part of the summer. The disease was most frequently found in children under six, and where older people were attacked the mortality was usually considerably higher. It had been suggested that the disease was caused by a certain fly, similar to a house fly, which had been seen in the districts where infantile paralysis had broken out. Food, and especially milk, v was a carrier. Dr. Lapage said he had often suspected public baths of spreading the disease, and where epidemics occurred he would advocate the closing of the baths. Animals were liable to the disease, and it was possible that they might spread it among human beings. Research was now being carried on with a view to discovering whether there was any connection between distemper, and infantile paralysis in animals.