INFANTILE PARALYSIS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVIII, Issue 15, 19 January 1914, Page 6

INFANTILE PARALYSIS.

FEARS OF EPIDEMIC IN THE SOUTH. j

A special telegram -> from Dunedin to a Ohristchurch paper st/ates that "the Health Department warns parents that an epidemic of infantile paralysis is gaining there. Tuifa telegram was referred to a jiumber of Christ-church medical men, and &6tne interesting particulars yf&rp' •"-obtained'.regarding the disease.' ' /Thp facts summed up are these.:-^Tn the past there have been' sporadic cises of infantile paralysis in New Zealand, but so far is known no epidemic. The disease is believed to be caused by an vorgajiism, and is infectious. It. is only recently that the infectiousness of the disease has been discovered. The disease usually results in death or permanent disable-: ment. It is not confined to.child,i"en. ' ;Itiis believed that wiib proper,:precautions the epidemic can be-pr'eyent-ed from spreading to Chrisitchurch. '■ The opinion is held by some; medical men that the epidemic has : reached Dunedin from America, where itihas been rife of late. wl A medical man who has recently arrived from Britain, where 'He: had' considerable experience of the disease, besides working- under a well-known American authority, gave some ■in-.

teresting details concerning it. Its correct name, he said, was poliomyelitis. It was almost certainly an infectious disease, after the style of diphtheria. It was due-ito an organism which, howevery had not yet been On -occasions the l<disease occurred sporadically all over Britain ; and Australasia,- but *>n -other occasions when changes occurred in the organism it'assumed the form of an epidemic. In the ordinary sense it was not infective, so far as medical men knew. In 1908 there were 500 cases in New York alone, many of which ended fatally, w-lulst a large number of others resulted in paralysis and deformities. Most of the club feet one saw were due to infantile paralysis. The disease could occiiT amongst adults. A large, number oj adults in Scotland had been, stirickeii with the disease, as well as many people in America.. With adults the. disease generally left as a legacy^ some form of paralysis, but bf course no shortage -of the limbs as in the case, of children, because the limbs were fully grown. So far as he knew; no previous epidemic had occurred in New Zealand. The epidemic would be ivory difficult to tackle, because so lititle was known about it. The. only wajs would be to class it as an infectious disease and. see that cases were notified promptly to the Health Department. The sdisease usually started with an ordinary feverish aifKack, and then the parents woulH suddenly discover that one of the child's limbs was paralysed. The disease usually attacked the legs, though it also occurred in the arms. It usually resulted fatally or in permanent injury, though there were cases of complete recovery. The percentage of deformities was very high. Miss' Maud Beatty,- the well-knowft actress, in her last letter from' America, to her parents in Christychurch, said:—"We are, now on tknir with my own company, and the first town struck was Eureka. Business was all right for the first few nights, but a. disease known as 'infantile paralysis' broke out, and the authorities prohibited children attending the theatre. As we show three times a day this was / a serious loss to us,'as the matinee always comprised a good number; of 'children . A-with their,; ■p,a^teflfe.".\..;-< t^.;:'.' i',";," » *•-;';■':•'■.:•■'.■ . '":'/i