The Washington herald., 1913-07-27
DR.. {. E. A. Winslow, Of
the American Museum Of
= Natural History, Finds Dis
ease Is Insect-Borne.

Conviction of the biting stable by A.
the transmitter Of infant paralysis or
| poliomyelitis. and its consequent eleva-
ton to the society in which the equally
dangerous house fly has for some time
| mingled. has been confirmed in an article
by DIR. c. z. a. Winslow of the Ameri-
can Museum of Natural History. IN the
current issue of the Museum Journal
The discovery is another triumph in
the conquest Of insect-borne diseases,
which has been prececed first by tho
discovery and control of the cause o:
malaria. This disease had been a corr
rlete mystery until in 1SS the English
man. Ross, and the Italian observers.
Glassi and Bisnami. solved the prob
lem, and the mystery resolved itself from
a miasm which came at night from the
swamps into the comparatively simple
question of controlling notwithstanding
pools. The history Of yellow fever il
much the same. II was in 1861 that the
American army surgeons. Reeds, Car
roll. and Argramonte. announced the dis
covery that 1t too was carried by b
mosquito of the genus Stegomyia. and
with this basin for action the conquest
Of the disease was almost immediate.
Disease Recently Mysterious.
Infantile paralysis. the latest of tha
insect-borne diseases to- yield up its Sc
cret, wild and obscure in its onset"
says Dr. Winslow. hut not infrequently
fatal and usually leaving its victims more
or less permanently crippled, was en-
tireIy a mystery until four years ago.
1t is not a new disease. In the light CT
modern knowledge it is clear that vsri-
Gus historical personagCs have suffered
from 1t. In 1906. however. It assumed
violent epidemic form in Sweden ard
quickly spread to this country. appear
ing first in 1907 in the eastern coast cities
and in 1875 in the Scandinavian states of
the Northwest
I'D the mystery of infant paralysis when
in 1905 Landsteiner and Pepper, in
Vienna, succeeded in transmitting the
disease to monkeys. Flexner and Lewis
at the Rockefeller Institute in the next
year extended this work and proved by
successive incubation experiments that
there was a living germ present in the
body and in the nose and throat of af-
fected persons. although this germ be-
longs to the class OF the 'flterable
viruses' organisms so minute, that they
will pass through the pores of a Berke-
field filter and cannot usually be distin-
guished under the most powerful micro
scopes.
very recently during the past winter
Flexner and Noguchi have added new
laurels to the Rockefeller Institute and
to New York by cultivating his almost
invisible germ outside the body. Animal
experimentation however, which has
been the chief agent in bringing COM
municable disease under control, made
It possible much earlier to detect the
presence Of the germ by its effects.
Flexner and Clark At the Rockefeller
Institute. Killing. wernstedt and Peterr-
sen at Stockholm. Osgood in Boston. and
others showed that the germ may persist
in the nose and throat after recovery
and that it may be found in the nose
and throat of healthy persons, who are
therefore liable to act as carriers of
Infection. although themselves not sick.
1t seemed probable that at least one
method Of spread of infant paralysis was
by more or less direct contact between
susceptible persons particularly children)
and either previous cases or healthy
carriers.
There we're two things, however,
which seemed puzzling and which could
not easily be harmonized with this
theory of spread by human contact. In
the first place infant paralysis is pre-
eminently q summer disease. Cases do
occur 8t 6u SedsOuS, out thc SiSoe A~
jority develop during the warm weather.
Now this Is q characteristic of insect
borne diseases like malaria and yeiiow
fever since the breeding Of the insect
hosts il directly dependent upon tempe
rature. On the other hand. diseases
which spread by contact usually reach
their maximum In winter when peop'e
are crowded together and there Is most
for the interchange OF germs.
There are exceptions to this ruie' hke
typhoid fever. which Is normally q sum-
mer disease. though In the horthern
United States II is not generally carried
by insects: SO the seasonal preSa'ehee
proves nothing by itself.
Raral Communities s"her.
Another curious fact brought out In |
the Massa chusetts studies by Richard |
son, however, was the greater propor-
tionate incidence of infant paralysis In |
rural than In urban districts. Again the |
rule IN not q universal, one. but the fact !
that even In one State q distinctly higher
percentage Of cases occurred In the coup-