The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1916-08-10

cultivated outside of the body is still arl
undecided question. @
Z The spinal cord OF a paralyzed monkey
always contains the virus we arc consid-'
ering II camers hair pencil or pledget
of cotton is covered with some of the
broken up tissue of such a cord and
PAINTED upon the mucous menbrane Of
monkeys these animals will develop in due
time the paralysis and other symptoms
of -poliornyeIitis. 1880 ----.------~---i
The chief terror of the disease lies in
its appalling power to produce defor1n1ties.
When death does occur it is not the re-
suit. as In many infections, of a process
of poisoning that robs the patient Of
strength and CONSCIOUSNESS before its i'm
minence,a butt caused solely by paralysis
of the respiratory function, sometimes
with mereful suddenness,s but often with
painful slowness, without in any degree
obscuring the consciousness OF the suffo-
eating victim until just before the end is
reached. No more terrible tragedy can
be witnessed. u
The employment for treatment of the
immune serum, taken from monkeys or
from human beings, exercises definite II
not very strong protective action upon in
oculated monkeys. Either the disease is
prevented altogether, or its evolution Is
modified in such a manner as to diminish
a.
oculation is highly adapted to the, monkey
and thus very virulent; it is more difficult
to control the result than when it departs
less from the original type and is less &C
tive. NH}A. IL M
How 1t Acts.
The immune serum has thus far acted
best when it was injected into the sub
dural space on several successive days.
This is in conformity with the fact that
however introduced into the body the
virus establishes itself in communication
with the cerebrospinal liquid where ii
propagates for time Later the virns
localizes in the nervous Tissue itself and
becomes accessible not from this liquid
only but, probably, from the general blood
also.
The serum introduced into the subdural
space soon escapes into the blood; and
thus double action is secured; on the
one hand it reaches the nervous tissue di-
rectly from the Fcerebrospinal liquid, and
on the other indirectly with the blood An
immune horse serum at first gave disap-
pointing results, but latterly its employ
ment by intramuScular injection has given
more promise. Il F,s-
The point Of. departure which we have
adopted is the drug acknowledgements
(urotropin) which possesses a degree OF
antiseptic action in the body and is known
/
LIQUID. When the drug is administrated
by mouth it can be detected by chemical
tests in the liquid in a short time. When
incubation of virus and administrator
of the drug are begun together and the
administration continued for some days
afterward, the development of the para
lysis is sometimes but not always aVerted
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS lends itself to modi-
fications by the addition of still other
10 va 70
tested large number OF SUCH modlnca'
lions and have found certain ones to eX-
coed the original compound in protectlve
power, and others to promote the onse'
of paralysis. None is wholly without some
degree of injurious action upon the SEN
sitive and vital organs of the body. Blu,
manipulative skill has already succeeded
in eliminating the Objectionable and I'M
proving the valuable features of certain
drugs so that they exert action but little
upon the organs and severely upon the
parasite, when they become useful thera-
peutic agents.
Power May Return.
In the less severe cases of infantlle
paralysis only a group of muscles un
dergo complete paralysis and atrophy
and there is always hope of some re-
turn of power in paralyzed limb. AS
ISOLATED with the withered condition OF
the limb due to the muscular atrophy
is an enfeebled circulation, rendering
the limb cold, blue and livid; the nu
triton of the bones and other parts Is
involved, so that limb paraVzed in
early infancy does not grow and Is
shorter than it's fellow.
In Scandinavian countries the di
sease is prevalent and sometimes as
sumes an epidemic form, whereby one
is led to believe that it is due to al
infective organism.
Beginning in 1907, or thereabout, a
pandemic of the disease arose. The
United States, Austria, Germany, and
latterly France have certainly had cpl
demic outbreaks. 1t is considered q
matter of significance that the original
foci of the epidemic disease in the
United States, occurring in the summer
nine years ago, were among the At
lantic seaboard states, and that the
two centers of population most seri
ously affected were Greater New York
and Boston. The particular point OF
Importance in this respect arises from
the fact that those two centers of pop
ulation receive first and in most con
centrated way the immigrant popula
tons from northern and eastern Eu
rope.