INFANTILE PARALYSIS

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1960, 17 January 1914, Page 6

INFANTILE PARALYSIS

SPORADIC CASES,

WELLINGTON DOCTOR'S VIEWS.

'A Wellington medical man who had experience- oi the infantile paralysis epidemic which occurred in Glasgow about seven years ago gave it as his opinion to a Dominion- reporter last night that the probabilities wero against tho disease spreading from Dunedin, whero an epidemic at present exists. Tho disease- was highly contagious, but 6poradic < cases cropped up from timo to time. The disease was first recognised in Geneva in 1805, but since 1860 it has been prevalent in Germany and the United States. During the outbreaks of 1906 and 1908 in Scotland some hundreds of cases occurred in Glasgow, and tho mortality was very heavy. The disease did not spread to a great extent then, although somo casea occurred in London. Very- littlo is known yet of tho conditions governing transmission of tho infection. The introduction of the virus i 3 thought to take place through tho ear, noso, and throat, but direct contagion from man to man,' or by means of clothes, has often failed to occur where-it might havo been expected. Tho young are most liable to take. the disease, 80 per cent, of the known cases being under 16 years of age, while only about h'vo per cent, were over 25 years. The soxes are attacked nearly equally. , 11-egarding symptoms, the doctor eaid that thero are in a few cases slight premonitory symptoms, such as nausea, sick headaches, etc., but in most cases tho patient is attacked with severe headache, and has to givo up at once. The patient also suffers from paina in the back of tho head, and stiffness of muscles at tho back of the neck, and often tho head is drawn back by tho contraction of tho neck muscles. The face muscles become paralysed,, and the temperature is high, as high as 108 in some_ instances before death takes place. An important feature of tho disease is also skin eruptions, which appear/ early in tho disease, as frequently in mild as in savor© cases. Thero aro different varieties of the epidemic, and the death-rate varies from thirty to seventy per cent, of the patients attacked. Death takes place sometimes in a. few days, and in other cases, the majority, does not occur for from two ti) four weeks. Diagnosis is , not difficult in tho course of an epidemic,, but otherwiso blood-poisoning from food may bo mistaken for) it. It is an epidemic difficult to deal with, and a serum treatment has been extensively tried. The serum which Ims given most satisfaction was that discovered by Flexner and Joblinoc, of tho Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research. In time of danger the one thing most Important is the keeping of the nose and mouth clean, and avoiding close contact with those ill.