TREATMENT OF PARALYSIS

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 25022, 2 November 1946, Page 2

TREATMENT OF PARALYSIS

RESULTS OF MEDICAL RESEARCH 75 PER CENT. OF VICTIMS CAN RECOVER (From Our Own Correspondent.) „ , , . CHICAGO, October 17. Medical science still can not prevent the occurrence of a single case of infantile paralysis, but it can enable 75 per cent, of the victims of the disease to recover without any handicap. This statement was made by Mr Roland H. Berg, staff member of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, says the Associated Press. Mr Berg said that flies or other insects had not been established as carriers; that the tiny polio virus had not been completely identified; that science had not unlocked the mystery of the nerve cell which acts as host to the virus, and that better diagnosis methods were needed.

In spite of some 40 years of research, he said in an article in “Hygeia,” health magazine of the American Medical Association: “it is still impossible to prevent the occurrence of an epidemic or even one single case of infantile paralysis. “The agent that may carry the polio virus and transmit it to human beings has not yet been found. No tangible evidence has been uncovered to incriminate flies, mosquitoes, or animal agents. “On occasions scientists have discovered that flies trapped in epidemic areas carry the virus of polio, but they have not been able to link a polioladen fly with an; actual case of human polio. “It may be possible for flies or other insects to be incriminated more definitely, but at the present time scientists believe that the disease is more likely parsed by intimate person to person contact.” Mr Berg said that scientists at Stanford University, under the direction of Dr. Hubert S. Loring, recently were about 80 per cent successful in purifying the polio virus, and that they believed it was probably protein in character and one of the smallest organisms ever studied. Great strides had been made in treatment, including therapy to keep muscles in healthy condition during the “temporary damage” the spinal cord and bfain areas suffered at the onset of the disease “Physicians report that three out of every four cases of infantile paralysis can recover without any handicaps,” concluded Mr Berg.