The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 1914. INFANTILE PARALYSIS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 55, 6 March 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 1914. INFANTILE PARALYSIS.

Scientific research regarding the mysterious and too-frequently fatal disease known commonly as infantile paralysis does not appear to have made much ground during the past sixty years, until about live years ago, recording to an article in The Hospital, which gives some of the latest results of the investigations made into the nature of this disease. Known to the medical world as poliomyelitis, infantile paralysis has now been clearly identified in New Zealand, and a summary of what The Hospital says about it is therefore of especial inter- ' est. The- German scientist who is credited as being the original describee, over half a century ago remarked that it was recognised that epidemics of infantile paralysis sometimes occur, and the belief had prevailed that it was of the nature of an infective fever, “hut no proof of these theories could] be offered, and the high authorities one and all professed a complete iguor- : i > of the natural history of the dis-| ease and of its dissemination.” To thei Americans, it appears, belongs thoj honor of having done most of recent y ers to clear up the problems con-| nected with the disease, and in 19091 it was proved that poliomyelitis could: 00 produced in monkeys by inoculating( them with some of the secretions from cases of recent human poliomyelitis, ‘donkeys thus infected showed symptoms very similar to those of children, and it Was found that the disease wasj .w en more fatal in monkeys than in j ci ildren, in whom the death-rate is about 10 to Id per cent. It was shown! 1 mt the virus of the disease, whatever, it may be, would pass through a! P rkefeld filter and still remain active I “Thus all the micro-organisms which | bad been hitherto under suspicion i v ere clean'd of complicity.” it was; aiwo ascertained that practically from! •iM parts of the body virus could he I obtained, and it was therefore concluded that Hie disease was in the nature j rd a blood infection, the after effects i of which were strictly manifest in the j spinal cord, thus confirming the views j

held by previous investigations that, the paralysis « j i; rat her an accident- >■ iu the course of the disease, than an | essential part ot it. Possibly the most important discovery was that recovered monkeys were tound to be immune, *. and further, that infection with their ■ serum was proved to protect nouimmnuc individuals, ft is also sup- ( post'd that possibly many, or even. ( most, adults may he immune through- , unrecognised attacks in inlancy, which ,1 may have caused constitutional disturb-, amrs only, hut were not followed hyj anv paralysis, the theory being that i in the majority ol cases most persons j only show very mild symptoms, a small | percentage exiio-i.mg the pai ale si -; which has given the disease its name, i while to a still smaller number the disease is actually fatal. lhat the Dominion’s Health Department has made the poliomyelitis a “notifiable disease” is the wisest step, as onaming the collection of statistics and information on which to base a further study of the disease, and also as a necessary precaution to check tnc spread of any epidemic. i nfortnriately. according to latest reports, no satisfactory remedy for the disease has yet been found, but, as The Hospital remarks, “when it is remembered what great progress the last few years have brought forth it is impossible t -i despond for the future.”