The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1946-08-07

| the most favorable time to re
move children's tonsils and ade
noids. However, the Nationa
Foundation for Infantile Paraly
sis in its list of precautions agains
polio advises, IF possible, avoit
tonsil and adenoids operation,
during epidemies." Why?
Scientific studies in recent
years of cases of infantile pa.
ralysis among children have re-
vealed the startling fact that
many serious, even fatal attacks
of the disease have followed ton.
sill and adenoid operations.
The most dramatic of these
studies took place in Akron, O..
in 1941, when infantile paralysis
suddenly struck family, attack
ing five of the six children and
killing three of them. Immediate.
ly the tragedy-stricken home in
Akron became the mecca of po-
lilo scientists sent by the National
Foundation for Infantile Paralysis
to investigate the why's" of this
tragic visitation.
The medical Omen headed by
DR.. Thomas Francis, Jr., of the
University of Michigan and DIR.
John A. Toomey of Western Re
serve University spent months
tracking down the numerous
clues. Hundreds of specimens of
blood, stool, milk, water, flies and
even dust were collected and sent
to laboratories for exhaustive
tests. More than fifty of the
farnily's friends and relatives
with whom their children had
been in contact were questioned
and examined.
BY piecing together bits of, cir
cumstantial evidence and the re-
suits of laboratory tests, Drs.
Francis and Toomey finally were
able to reconstruct the strange
tragedy at Akron. A few weeks
previous to the polio attacks the
two younger children had visited
a young cousin, who, at the time,
suffered a mild illness. Tests re-
vealed that this cousin had the
virus of infantile paralysis in his
body. The scientists deduced
that he had infected two young
est children, who, in turn. had
passed the infection on to their
older brothers and sisters. Sound
as this reasoning was it still did
not explain why, if all six of the
children of the. family had the
injecting virus in their bodies,
only. five of them developed se-
rious attacks of polio. ..a4z
Only One Survived
But the scientists discovered
the answer to that question. also.
Less than week before the
tragedy occurred the five oldest
children had undergone tonsil
and adenoid operations. A few
days later, one by one, all five
of the children developed infan-
tile paralysis which quickly be-
came more serious. Despite i'm
mediate frospita1ization and good
medical care, three of the affect
ed children died of the disease.
The only one of the family's six
children spared was the young
est, who had not undergone any
operation. There, the scientists
concluded, was the answer to the
question.
Anesthesia, during operation,
results in a decrease in the
amount of oxygen in the body's
cells, robbing them of resistance
to many disease germs. In addi-
ton, the exposure of tiny nerve
endingS in the raw wounds of the
operation opens up a direct path
of invasion for the virus of infan-
tile paralysis. These were the
factors responsible for the trag-
edy.
/ Other scientific studies have
corroborated this evidence. DR..
Sidney D. Kramer, a research
scientist of the Michigan State
Department of Health, whose
work in polio was supported by
the National Foundation, inves-
tigated number of infantile pa
ralysis cases which occurred in