INFANTILE PARALYSIS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4047, 13 May 1938, Page 7

INFANTILE PARALYSIS

A NEW ANTITOXIN. That Infantile paralysis may be controlled or prevented by a new antitoxin prepared from sheep is suggested by a remarkable report from the School of Tropical Medicine at the University of Sydney. Newspapers during the week recorded tire proposed importation of monkeys for infantile paralysis research at North Shore Hospital as “unique” in Australian medical annals. This is not strictly true. The School of Tropical Medicine obtained monkeys from Calcutta some time ago, and have already, by using these in experiments, confirmed promising results, reported from California, of a new antitoxin against human infantile paralysis, prepared from sheep. This antitoxin was prepared by injecting sheep over a three year period with the virus (infective agent) of human infantile paralysis. Sheep do not contract infantile paralysis, but their systems treat the virus as a “foreign body” or poison, and manufacture a natural antitoxin against it in constantly increasing amounts. This natural antitoxin is the basis of the new serum, a supply of which was forwarded to Sydney by Miss B. Howitt, a Californian research worker. Monkeys come into the picture simply as go-betweens; that is, subjects on whom such new remedies can be tried out. Naturally, children cannot be used for experiments which might endanger life. Monkeys are used because they are the only animals which will contract infantile paralysis. In testing the serum, the monkeys were first given the disease by using virus obtained from a human patient in Sydney. So far the tests show that the now sheep serum possesses high powers of protection against, as well as a “killing” effect upon, the virus obtained from monkeys actually suffering from the disease. The outlook is promising, but it is too early yet to speak of “cures.”