INFANTILE PARALYSIS

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 April 1937, Page 10

INFANTILE PARALYSIS

RESEARCH WORK IN U. STATES.

•,-Extsnsivs research is taking place i'hthe United States of America with a.yievz to discovering a method of protection from infantile paralysis. Experiments on monkeys with a.,nasa. spray of picric acid and alum and also with a solution of zinc sulphate are stated to have nroved very highly Successful., in establishing; &' blockade against the entry of the' poliomyelitis microbe. The pieric-alumspray was extensively used on human beings during the 1936 Summer epidemic in Alabama, and although a reduction in the attackr'rate is claimed lor it ex-periments-are now being made to see if zinc sulphate is more suitable. An article, which appeared in last month’s j issue o£ the American “Ladies’ Home Journal,” has been Written by Mr Pau.l de Kruif, secretary of a commission set up to administer funds provided for research in the prevention of infantile paralysis in America. The commission, advised by a medical, committee of high scientific authdfjjY’ administers these funds, which ar&“ grafttejl' to 14 laboratories in the Ignited States, where research on one phase or another ot the question of infantile paralysis is now progressing. .‘Extracts from the article foßow:.—r “It is now pretty safe to predict that in Sufnm&r a.yiew . step .will be taken in foe infantile paralysis,”“says W-d< KruiC “While •the science of this ilb'iy/ieath guard is so simple that a ten-year-old, boy. or girl can its uSe will demand the mobilising of a highlytrained army of dqath-fighting men and women —doctbf§,‘, health men, nurses. ' . “It can -only lie. successful if the mass of thb people . Will take though 1 to see to ‘it that'/oiir death fighters arc equipped and'ready ’before another epidermic explodes. Everything, in this war against the maiming illness of their bhildre'n, • now depends on the people’s foresight. The worth of this admittedly exoeriaidhtal new weapon can only be proved’ if it is tried under the most exact, medically regulated circumstances. All hangs on mothers’ and fathers’ understanding of the sinister resorcefulness ol the murderous poliomyelitis microbe —and tlieir knowing, too its recently discovered fantastic weakness. "Just as no sort of blood scrum has to prevent the devastating attack ol these deadly microbes undn the nerve cells of a child’s brain and- spinal cord, so, tom such serum hold’s no hope tor cure, once the murderous midgets have sneaked in there to begin their mischief. Such serum cure has been claimed - by doctors. Faith in it is still held out by some. Cold experiment has given a sad ‘no’ for answer ... - “But ‘-if the microbes of infantile paralysis are so sly that it’s vain to hope tof sleuth out the.„t.rail of their maraudings, if serums won’t guard, if vaccines’ fail. • to~prevent, what’s left but’ resignation? Well, hero's the glory of our men against the maiming death: that they never know when they dre beaten. These past three years they’ve found that what had seemed a most sinister' strength ci' the paralysing microbe, was its. Achilles’s heel, its weakness!. “The one place in nature where- it can. live; multiply, work its harm, is in the nerve stuff of humans, and monkeys. Brilliant science in the laboratories of London, New York, Stanford University and Chicago now makes it pretty certain that this death sneaks direct-l’rom the . outside. world into a child’s brain, and so down to its spinal cord to work its paralytic mischief. . . .

ONLY WAY OB’ ENTRY. i “Of course you’ll now ask how on earth can these infantile-paralysis microbes- possibly sneak into your child- when theysd soon perish in the child-s stomach or its blood, or any ether part of him'; except the insidesc? his nerves" and'; poRVc cells? it’s right liere our st'aif'dli'6'r’l ;( ''ifavb 1 reached thb veryi heart of the mystery, groped toivard---someth ifig profoundly hope? ful. Inside the noses of- monkeys—and- children! — tlicy’vc spied a curious little doorway by which, arid through|which alone,'this death can enter. S

“Up ill the roof, tile very vault of monkey# and childrens’ noses, lies the tiny, hairline' endings of the nerves 6f smell. They’re the only nerves in all the body, that are completely naked to the outside world. They pass from the nose through the bottom of the skull direct to the brain. This, and this alone, is the only pathway by which it is. surely known that the dreadful paralytic death can force entry. “The ink’s hardly dry on the pages of the reports of this science, when microbe-hunter Charles Armstrong-,• of the United States Public Health Service, at. Washington, steps into the death light.. With no thought, no ambition whatever—but that’s another story—to save babies from infantile paralysis, he begins a subtle, three years’ searching. He ends it, in the Spring of 1936, with a fantastic a truly powerful way of blocking the little endings of the nerves of smell of monkeys, so. that -the .paralytic death cannot -get in. "Day after day he washes the inaide of sundry monkeys’ noses with a weak*-solution.'"of picric acid and alum. That way he coats, he galvanisespyou might say, those delicate ricr've endings. . Then he waits six days, lets those galvanised monkeys rest. Then day after day, he pours into their nostrils /terrific, deadly doses of the infantile paralysis virus

And' this absolutely, simple—and harmless—preventive saves 24 out of 35 monkeys from a hot, dangerous virus that paralyses, kills 20 out of 26 monkeys whose noses have not been washed out with the solution of picric acid plus alum. . . . “No death-guarding vaccine invented by Pasteur, no diphtheria serum discovered, by great Emile Roux, had given laboratory hopes more high'. But, of course,. Alabama’s doctors and parents (there was an epidemic of infantile paralysis in Alabama in the 1936 Summer) had to ask Armstrong: ‘Have you, and your co-worker. Harrison, the right to reason that what works so marvellously for monkeys will guard our babies, too? Are you sure the -only way'this death can get into our children is by way of their noses, by their nerves of smell?

"To that Armstrong had to giveanswer: ‘No. we’re not dead certain. We cannot subject babies to the dangerous experiment of pouring hot infantile paralysis virus into their nostrils. Yet- Armstrong could tell them this; ‘That—overwhelmingly—epidemic experts believe the trail this death takes is from the nose of one

human being to the next one.’ . . . “But was the new preventive surely harmless! This question, too, had to be asked of Armstrong. Well, his monkeys hadn’t minded it one bit. And’ Armstrong and Harrison themselves had sprayed it, day after day for a whole month, up their own noses. Not a sneeze or a twinge as a result. No apparent damage to their sense of snje.lL

METHOD OF TREATMENT.

“Armstrong- begged that the doctors would apply this new, hoped-for preventive, even though it seemed so simple. All there was to it was to get the solution of picric acid-alum now ready in Alabama’s drug stores; spray it, with three or four good puffs from an atomiser, every other day for three sprayings, and then once a week during threat, of epidemic danger, into the noses of Alabama’s embattled citizens —young and , old, big and little, rich and poor.” “In Birmingham • and Jefferson ■Cotmty, Alabama, out of 1153 carefully investigated families who had been sprayed, only 57 had been sprayed by physicians, only 112 by nurses, and the remaining nearly 100 families had made their own scientific experiment on themselves or had it done by friends or neighbours! ,

“Was the picric-alum spray a. dangerous thing? Hardly. Were there disasters? None that could really be called such. Out of one sample of nearly 5000 people, it is true that about 1000 had some annoyance—headaches, ..or nausea, or irritated noses,, or-they said it gave them colds, and one said the spray had made him feverish, and still another claimed the preventive made’ him feel bad all dyer. Five cases of hives were reported. And the worst news was that of two children who had got acute kidney poisoning, but rapidly recovered. “This is the record of harm —out of an estimated 2,000,000 people who tried’ to-guard themselves from the ’paralytic death last Summer. "Yet Armstrong—who, like the real elite of men of science, tries first to prove his science wrong—admits the paralytic terror did sneak into certain children, though their mothers sprayed them strictly according to directions. But lumping all the cases, well and badly-sprayed together, this mass self-protection, chaotically, inexpertly, hit-or-miss as it was done, seems to have- cut down the attack rate of the paralysing terror by onethird, at least.

“Yet Armstrong is cold about his .science, and he- insists that this has fi.ow. got to be found out, since certain children were paralysed in spite of the preventive: Does this picric-alum solution lack the power, for children, that it shows so marvellously in monkeys? Or are these seeming failures cf the solution due to an incomplete blockade up in children’s noses, no matter how conscientiously their •mothers—or their doctors!—sprayed them?

"This last Autumn he could not give a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to these momentous questions. I-Ie went back to his laboratory in Washington—not discouraged, mind _you, but back to his monkeys—to look for some magic chemical that would never give a single- case of hives., or sore nose, or nausea, or headache. And something whose death-blockading power might ba greater,' more lasting.”

USE OF ZINC SULPHATE. The writer proceeds to describe how careful tests are now under way to-determine whether zinc sulphate, cue per cent solution, might cause discomfort, slight irritation or harm to the insides of children’s noses. Experiments are taking place by injecting this solution into the noses of monkeys. “One of the great practical objections to the picric-alum spray -was this one: the children had to be sprayed several times the first week the epidemic threatened, - ’ says Mr de Kruif. “And once a. week, at least, thereafter. ... If the zinc solution is used this coining Summer, how many treatments will be needed? Into one cohort of monkeys our California searchers sprayed the life-giving zinc ( solution just once. Then left them absolutely untreated for one month. Then, live days in succession they flooded their noses with the paralytic death. But all of them stayed healthy. “Will one treatment actually ho enough for children? It is too soon to say. There is now every reason to hope that our men against death have a weapon at. their command as harmless as it is powerful to guard our children. If only we, the people, will demand, will pee to it. that Ihe preventive is properly and thoroughly applied.

“The answer’s plain now. q’he preventive must be applied by expert doctors. . . Work now in progress on the final way of using this powerful 1 lockade against death will be finished. (his Winter, jn time to show our doctors and death lighters how to apply the preventive next Summer By that time they will know whether the zine sulphate, so death-blockading and so harmless for monkeys, will be completely without danger to children. . . . Picric acid-alums, and zinc sulphate, whichever one will be found more suitable to use—these deathguarding chemicals are absolutely eheap."

The article is accompanied by the following note by the editors of the journal: "Medical science has made admitted errors in the past. But its steady progression in conquering onedreaded disease after another has been one of the unquestioned triumphs of our age. As editors we arc hesitant to declare that a. certain cure has been found for any disease. But in this accompanying article Paul de Kruif records what may very well prove to be the first, great step in conquering one of the most terrifying diseases of our time—infantile 1 analysis.”