’NFANTILE PARALYSIS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 102, 3 May 1938, Page 9

’NFANTILE PARALYSIS

LESSONS OF EPIDEMIC IN VICTORIA

[ Ter Presa Association.! AUCKLAND, May 2. “Although the infantile paralysis epidemic in Victoria has subsided, there are hundreds of patients in the various hospitals receiving after care treatment,” said Mr. H. Barrett, man aging-secretary of the Melbourne Children’s Hospital, a through passenger on the Mariposa to San Francisco, on an official world tour to gather information on children’s hospitals as a preliminary building of a new children’s hospital at Melbourne. “We had 2100 cases in Victoria during the epidemic,” said Mr. Barrett. "The epidemic was a new experience to hospitals. Many patients contracted paralysis in the respiratory regions and we had to obtain 30 respirators, constructed on ‘iron lung’ principle. At times all were in use.” He added that millions of pounds had been spent throughout the world on reseat ch, but no definite conclusions as to origin had been reached. "It is definitely known that it is a bug,” he said. "In treatment Victoria has done everything attempted by other countries.”