The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1916-11-09
The Plague Mysterious
By FREDERIC J. HASKlN

NEW YORK, Nov. THE epidemic
of infantile paralysis here has fallen off
TO few cases day, but the campaign
against the disease has not relaxed a
whit. In the office of the United States
Public Health service, whence the
government studies of this plague
have been directed, there is now going
forward what is from a scientific point
of view the most important work of the
campaign. All of the data gathered
while the disease was raging is now be-
ing classified, chartered, mapped and
studied in an effort to learn the truth
about this newest and most mysterious
of the deadly diseases.
The layman knows that nearly all of
the monkeys in New York have been
sacrificed in study of how the disease
is communicated, and he knows that
several different scientific societies and
individuals are said to have isolated as
many different organisms. which are
held responsible for 1t. But of the ex-
tenslve study of the disease with regard
to its and incidence, which played a
much larger part in the actual fight
against it, he has heard little or moth
ing.
The headquarters of the fight against
polio" and it is dubbed by the men of
science, look like those of a general
in the field. And indeed, generalship
deduction, plan and action-is the
quality that counts in the combating of
an epidemic.
The walls in this medical campaign
headquarters are covered with maps
and charts. The maps range all the
way from an immense one of the Uni
ted States to large scale maps of single
wards in New York City. Ali of
them are stuck full of little pins with
various colored heads, so that the whole
effect is exactly like that of war maps
There are larger pins that represent ten
cases each, and smaller ones for single
cases, while the colors indicate the
month in which the disease appeared.
The charts are curves, mathematically
plotted, and show graphically the rise
and fall of the disease.
Now before you can understand the
use of maps and charts in fighting a
plague, you must know something of
the mystery which surrounds this dis
, ease. In the first place it was unknown
until about sixty-fve years ago, and
then appeared only as a slight and
occasional malady. Small epidemics
were first reported in the late eighties,
and some fairly large ones about ten
years ago; but it was never before
known that infant paralysis could de-
velop into such a wide spread and dead
1 ly plague as has just swept the country
/ This development is generally explained
by the assumption that the germ Of the
. disease has been in process of evolution;
for germs. like higher organisms, may
envolve, degenerate and perish.
This great epidemic having suddenly
. burst out, like ground fire in forest,
at hundreds of widely separated places,
the question confronting the men OF
science was, how does it travel? The
thing might be stated this way: Let a
represent a child who has the disease
and B a child who is susceptible to it.
The medium between the two is all OF
mans environment. How, then is the
disease transmitted through that
medium?
There are two ways of tackling the
problem. One is the laboratory meth.
cd of trying to isolate the organism
and find a specific that will kill it. The
other is to field study, which is much
like the method of modern detective
of crime. Every move and trace of the
mysterious visitant is studied, and de.
auctions made as to how it works anC
what it is.
Naturally, before you can proceed by
this second method, YOU must have &
theory of the matter. which you viii
try either to prove or disprove, There
is no use looking for the murderer il
the victim may have been struck by
lightning. So, in this case, the con.
clusions of Wickman, a Swedish scien
fist who studied the disease in 1905, are
taken as an hypothesis. He believed
that the disease is spread by actua
physical contact, and that the germ.
may be carried by persons who do not
develop the symptoms of the disease
themselves. Now the scientist sets out
either to prove this theory correct OF
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