The Washington times., 1916-08-19
IS INFANTILE PARALYSIS CON.
TAOIOUSp

Whatever may be the cause, the
precise character, or the means Of
disseminating infantile paralysis,
observation Of the present and
earlier outbreaks Of the disease has
justified the conclusion that If con-
tagious at all, it is so in a very
slight degree.
Among the misapprehensions con-
cerning the disease is this one that
it is peculiarly contagious. It will
probably require very long time,
and repeated presentations of the
exact statistical experience, before
this notion can be eradicated from
the public mind. There are COM
munities in which witchcraft is still
pretty firmly established.
Quite recently the New York
health department, which has kept
accurate records of the cases there
made the official deduction that "the
number Of cases in which a child con-
tracts the disease after another
member of the family has been taken
i'll is decidedly small" This is the
conclusion from one of the most de-
tailed and painstaking studies Of the
disease ever made. 10000.
There is like testimony from the
Federal Public Health Service. Early
in the present week it issued a report
by Surgeon Wade H. Frost, in part
thus:
The statistics show that Of 2,o70
persons exposed to poliomyelitis by
residence In the same houses and the
same families as the .poliomyelitis
patients only fourteen developed the
disease In its frank form. Even as
suming that all OF these actually
contracted the infection from asso-
citation with the sick members of
families. the giousness of polio
myelitis must still be very slight, less
than one-fifteenth OF scarlet fever.
Similar evidence OF the slight con-
tagiousness Of poliomyelitis has been
children exposed to contagion by as
sociation, In schools and Institutions,
with acute cases.
On the whole. II may fairly defi-
nitely be concluded that II poliomye-
litis Is contagious disease con-
fined to human beings, as certainly
seems most probable at this time,
| the chief source Of infection must be,
| more probably. apparently healthy
| carriers.
Statistics from 2,07O instances o.
persons exposed, in the same hous,
where the disease is, and amons
whom only fourteen contracted it
comes close to demonstrating tha
contagion is not a factor at all. Tn,
existence Of the same general causes
within the household would nat
urally enough account for more thar
one member Of the family being af
flicted. Indeed, the fact that amons
2,070 persons thus exposed onl!
fourteen would develop the diseas,
must be regarded as suggestin,
that it is almost unique in this re
gard. Without statistics at hand, i
seems that the disease must be, OF
this showing, even less liable t,
duplication in the same family, from
like causes, than typhoid.
Further evidence against the ide,
of contagion Is the experience O
various epidemics that have beel
studied. They show that the diseas
does not commonly extend itsel
along routes of travel. In Vermont
an epidemic developed that the re
mote rural communities, to whicl
suspected persons were not at al
likely to resort, were even NOR
liable to the disease than the citie
and centers of travel.
No great progress is making thu
far toward determining the fact
about origin and spread of tn
disease. But at least some thing
that have been firmly believed
despite that they were utterly un
warranted, are being disproved.