Polio Pamphlet

Of the cause & cure of cancer, rheumatism, influenza, the common cold, a score of other diseases, doctors know practically nothing. But there are boundaries to medical ignorance: and from time to time doctors map the little they do know. Last week appeared a convenient manual of poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis) which clearly stated the main problems facing research workers.

It was the U. S. edition of the famed International Bulletin's newest volume: Infantile Paralysis. The Bulletin, which contains the latest words of 25 world-scattered polio experts, is edited by enthusiastic Dr. William Leo Colze of Brussels, now in Manhattan. U. S. publisher and distributor is the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, headed by Presidential friend Basil O'Connor, who administers funds raised at the President's Birthday Balls. Nuggets of information:

P: Polio is a cosmopolitan disease, heedless of climate, as deadly in the Arctic as on the Equator. But for some reason, more than half of all cases in the world occur in the U. S. and Canada, in the summertime. Reported cases in the U. S. from 1915 to the end of 1939 total 139,337. About 75%, of polio victims do not develop paralysis, and countless children pass through mild, "abortive," flu-like attacks, which produce complete immunity.

P: Contrary to popular opinion, no vaccine, serum or drug has yet been devised that will give immunity, check the progress of the disease, or prevent final paralysis. Most polio workers now believe that the virus enters the body through the nose. Two years ago, Dr. Edwin William Schultz of Stanford University tried to protect 5,000 Toronto school children against the disease by flushing their noses with antiseptic zinc sulfate solution. The experiment, said Dr. Schultz in the new Bulletin, was a flat failure. But doctors still think nasal sprays a hopeful idea, hope some other chemical may prove more effective than zinc sulfate.

P: In a great number of cases, paralyzed muscles can be toned up if they are gently coaxed into action as soon as the acute stage of the disease has passed (usually four or five weeks after first symptoms). Most popular form of exercise is warm water swimming, skillfully taught at President Roosevelt's "other home": Warm Springs, Ga. Less publicized, but requiring less equipment and equally effective is stimulation of muscle contraction by electric current. A large, "indifferent" electrode is placed over the spine, and a smaller, "active" one over a paralyzed muscle. The current is turned on and the muscle "tickled" six to ten times a minute. Gradually, the number of muscle contractions can be raised to the normal number of 30 or 40 a minute for a period of three minutes. Such stimulation, if cautiously and skillfully applied, has worked wonders with "old" paralysis, wrote Dr. Richard Kovacs of Manhattan. After four weeks of electric stimulation, he said, one patient with an "atrophied leg ... of 18 years' standing" was able to bend her knee again.

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