Monkey Mixture

At Philadelphia zealous Temple University's zealous Professor John Albert Kolmer injected into the brains of monkeys virus which had originally come from the spinal cord of children who had died of infantile paralysis. The monkeys promptly developed infantile paralysis. Professor Kolmer killed them, pulled out their spinal cords, ground them up with sodium ricinoleate. The resultant vaccine he injected into more monkeys, which thereupon withstood all efforts to infect them with infantile paralysis virus.

Last week Professor Kolmer publicly staked his professional reputation and promised to stake the life of his two children on the efficacy of his monkey mixture to prevent infantile paralysis. Said he: "I believe that it can safely and successfully be administered to children and other human beings."

There was nothing startlingly new about Professor Kolmer's method of combating infantile paralysis. Practically the same procedure of immunization is used by Professor Maurice Brodie of New York University (TIME, July 16). What set Professor Kolmer apart from other laboratory experimenters was his public certainty that he had found something worth while. So sure was he of his work that he injected himself with his devitalized vaccine early this summer when, if he was susceptible to infantile paralysis, he might logically have acquired the disease.

For none of these vaccines is it claimed that it will cure infantile paralysis, once the disease has set in. And even the power of these vaccines to prevent the disease will remain theoretical until a large community of children receive injections before the infantile paralysis season reaches its peak in summer. If the incidence of the disease then shows a marked drop below normal, all humanity may have good reason to salute Professor John Albert Kolmer.

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