Biography of the Crippler

The U.S. is in the midst of another rough bout with infantile paralysis, the worst since 1916. By last week there were 5,622 cases, some 1,600 more than at the same date in 1944 (the previous runner-up to 1916). Hardest hit: the South and Middle West. Minnesota had an epidemic (965 cases), and the disease was severe in Texas, Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri.

The U.S. people have spent more than $60,000,000 righting polio. What have they got for their money? Up to now, nothing that looks remotely like a preventive or cure. But scientists now have the ugly measurements of the disease, and they think they may be getting somewhere--in the laboratory.

Last week their progress and defeats were summed up in a book (The Challenge of Polio, Dial Press, $2.50) by Author-Bacteriologist Roland H. Berg, aided by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis.

Choosy Virus. Poliomyelitis is weird, unpredictable. At least as old as the ancient Egyptians (whose murals showed twisted figures obviously crippled by polio), it did not become epidemic until the 19th Century. The tiny virus that causes it (one of the smallest known) attacks only nerve cells, is almost never found in the blood. The disease occurs naturally only in man; researchers have been able to reproduce it artificially only in monkeys, cotton rats and specially bred mice (by injection of certain strains of the virus). Because its symptoms--sore throat, fever, headache, nausea, muscle stiffness--are much like those of the common cold, polio is hard to diagnose in its early stages; the only sure way is to inject an extract from the patient's excreta into a laboratory animal. Some pertinent polio facts:

P: Ten out of eleven human beings in whom the virus is found show no signs of the disease, but they may carry the virus for months and, though immune, they can transmit it to others.

P: Many attacked recover completely, without treatment.

P: The disease seems to strike hardest at the healthiest; because children with vitamin deficiencies seem to resist infection, doctors surmise that the polio virus does not thrive on undernourished body cells.

P: For reasons still unknown, pregnant women are especially resistant to the scourge of polio.

P: No one has yet determined how the disease spreads; it is as likely to strike on Park Avenue as in Hell's Kitchen, hits harder in suburbs than in cities. There is no proof that polio is spread by flies, drinking water, milk, swimming in infected waters.

Tracking a Cure. Medical scientists think they have turned up some promising leads for polio cure. One of them: a vaccine made of polio virus inactivated by ultraviolet rays; it has been successful in immunizing laboratory mice, but is still to be tested on monkeys and human beings.

But the doctors' most notable progress, points out Author Berg, has been in treating paralyzed patients, thanks to Sister Kenny's physical therapy. Also promising: the rivet-gun technique developed by California Surgeon Harvey Billig, who pounds paralyzed muscles into a pulp and crushes the nerves attached to them, thereby stimulating the growth of new nerve endings and restoring strength to the muscles by bringing more muscle fibers into play.

Yet despite physical therapy, some 15-to-20% of polio victims still suffer permanent paralysis. About 6% die.

From all the research, one clear, conclusive finding has emerged: laboratory animals or human beings are most susceptible to polio after 1) exhausting exercise, 2) a plunge into cold water in hot weather, 3) a tonsillectomy.

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