INFANTILE PARALYSIS.

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 302, 19 August 1916, Page 1

INFANTILE PARALYSIS.

NOT SPREAD RY THE STABLE

FLY

The contention that infantile paralysis, or Poliomyelitis (to use the medical term) is spread by the stable fly. as has been stated, is not supported by Dr. Sydney Smith, the District Health Officer for Wellington. Speaking to n reporter, Dr. Smith said that the? theory had been very carefully investigated, and experiments had shown that while it was possible for this fly to infect monkeys, it couTd be absolutely eliminated as a factor in the spread of the New Zealand epidemic. Out of the 339 cases carefully investigated only one patient was bitten by a. stable fly. "The disease, in my opinion," said Dr. Smith, "is carried almost entirely by healthy adults who have been in contact with unrecognised cases of the disease, and the spreading takes place very largely owing to contact with abortive forms of the complaint, which do not cause paralysis and are not recognised."