The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1911-06-21
Experiments Now Show That 1t Is
a Carrier for Infantile
Paralysis
REASONS MULTIPLYING
FOR EXPERIMENTING 1T
Monkeys Are Used for Testing Eff
fects at Rockefeller Institute
Germ Is Found to Work Quick
ly and Surely

NEW YORK. June 17.-EEperi-
ments carried on in the laboratories
of the Rock cfe!'er Institute OF Medi-
cal Research have demonstrated be-
yond reasona BILE doubt that the virus
Of infantile PARALYSIS is carried from
the sick to the vel by the comm IN
! ouse fly
1t had been readily understood the
poisonous cement of the disc use is
transferred frr m those suffering from
il TO persons br3uGht in contact with
the patients, also that healthy per-
sons carry the virus from the sick to
the well. But in thinly settled sec
tons of the country the disease has
spread in manner that could not he
accounted for by any of the foregoing
means of transmission
This led to the suspicion that the
common fly was the carrier. and re-
suited in experiments which have
been and are still being carried on
by Dr. Simon FleXner, director of the
institute assisted by Paul f. Clark,
PHI d.
Scientists Tell of Experiments
The experiments were made with
monkeys. and the results to date are
told by the scientists in the current
issue of the Journal of the American
Medical association. They state:
insects possessing the power to
migrate over a considera Bile TERRITORY,
that affect all classes of society, that
abound during the period of greatest
prevalence of the disease, and that do
not wholly disa ppear at any season,
should be the first to come under sus-
Iioion.
MANY, if not all of these con 'itions
are fulfilled by the common house
fly, which, therefore, has been SUBJ
iected to series of contamination
experiments.
Flies Bred for Tests
THE flies employed by us have
been laboratory bred. Full grown
flies have been permitted to feed on
the fresh spinal cord removed from
monkeys inoculated with the virus Of
poliomyelitis and recently paralszod q.
After feeding the flies have been
remov to a fresh receptacle from
winch certain numbers were removed
at intervals killed with ether, then
comminuted tground up) with sand
and extracted with a saline solution
The writer's go on to explain that
this solution was filtered so that all
bacteria were removed from it, leaV-
ing only whatever virus of the disease
might have been contained in the
bodies of the flies.
Experiments Made on Monkey
The first experiment with the fl
tered solution was made with mon
key. This particular solution was
prepared from the bodies of seven
nies which had lived i'm clean sur
roundings for twentN-four hours after
having fed on the spinal cord of a
monkey recently paralyzcd as the re-
suit of poliomyelitis The solution
was injected into the brain of a
healthy monkey on NAV .,
Monkey Infected by Fly
After recovery from the ether used
t.. make the injection of the solution
painless the monkey remained Ncll
until May s. when ii showed signs of
weakness. ON May .. the monkey be-
came nervous and eNcita BILE. symp-
toms which mark the start of infau-
tile paralysis in the human being. and
he left arm showed paralysis During
the day the paralysis increased ana
spread The animal was Killed