INFANTILE PARALYSIS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2725, 21 March 1916, Page 7

INFANTILE PARALYSIS

FRESH CASES

' EIGHT IN WELLINGTON

DISTRICT

TOTAL ABOUT 550

Eight more oases of infantile paralysfs were,-reported in the .Wellington uealtli Distriot yesterday, as follows: — , Picton .... ............. 1 Eltham...l Masterton 2 Otaki ................ 1 ■ - . Taihape 1 Gisborne 1 Upper Hutt ... 1 Total 8 There have been lift new oases; in tie City. - ■ ■■■ _, ■ Altogether 151 oa6ss have been notified in the Wellington Health Distriot, but the district' goes far afield' from Wellington City. It runs north as far as Poverty Bay and Taranaki, and in the: south it includes Nelson and Marlborough. There have been:l6 cases in the City, excluding Pet-one and; the Butt. ' Up till Friday SS7 cases had been reported : in the Auckland District, 17Q of \vliioli had ocourred in Auckland pity and suburbs. The total cases notified in New Zealand is about, 550. • .7 A_gogd deal of rain fell in Auckland on' Jriday, and it is hoped that that will assist in the suppression of tho epidemic. ' NO FRESH CASES IN MASTERTON. Our Masterton correspondent reports 'that no fresh, cases of infantile paralysis have been reported in Masterton. The ■ .two cases under treatment are not regarded as serious. ' The soholars of the Clyde Quay Sohool were notified yesterday afternoon that they would not be required' to attend school , until . Monday next. In the. ' meantime the schoolrooms: are -to be thoroughly/ fumigated under the direction of. the Health Department. FOUR MOBE CASES IN AUCKLAND. By Telegraph—Pi-ess Association. Auokland, March 20. Four cases of infantile paralysis reported isince' Saturday,, three in the country and on© in the city. The.total Bases is now. 392. % An infant has died v in .the country, making the deaths 37. FATAL CASE AT HASTINGS. ■•! By Telegraph—Pt-css AssociationHastings, March 20;... A four-months-old infant' which was found suffering from infantile paralysis was removed iVoni Hastings, to - the 'Napier Hospital on Saturday, Eind died yesterday. The Health Inspector says it was the worst case he had Been in Hawke'e Bay. I NUMBER OF CASES IN WAIKATO. v Hamilton, March 20. i Cases of infantile paralysis in -the Waikato Health Distriot now; .total 85. : A "WALKING CURE." 'K "walking cure" for infantile paralysis lis giving most excellent results at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Siok Children, London". Under the old system a child was kept, in bed and massage ,and electricity were'used, .to keep the • muscles: from wasting. ' i Now, through a .splint made of noninflammable material of extreme r lightness and strength, perfected by Dr. Batten, of the hospital, the children ore taught to walk as 6oon as the pain of the seizure is over.' The weight of the body is supported in a kind of crawling chair. The paralysed muscles suffer -. a minimum. of wasting, and the injured nerves regain power rapidly.—"Daily Mail."

PART THE SUN'S RAYS PLAY

SOME EFFECTS OF SOLAR ACTIVITY.

Interviewed by a member of the Wangaiiui "Herald's" staff on tho question as to what-part the sun's rays may play in the infantile paralysis epidemic, the Hon. Direotor of the Wanganui Observatory, Mr. J.. T. Ward, made some very interesting remarks. "There is," said Mr. Ward, " a good 'deal,of information available' as .to the variation' in the sun's heat, or intensity of solar radiation- from day to day, and even from hour to hour, under similar Conditions, and these results, have ..been confirmed by observations taken from high-level stations (16,000 feet high), and over desert surfaces in Algeria 1 and Southern California simulfaneously . • ■■ -

"Efforts have been made by astrono'mers,. for nearly a century, to determine the exact amount of heat received on the earth's surface, after' due allowance has been made for absorption in our atmosphere. " Many instruments Eave been devised for this purpose, but "it is only within more reoent years that a very sensitive instrument has been, brought to anything near perfection," baiH Mr. Ward. "If we take, the ordinary tratte thermometer, it may_ give us readings accurate to within aoout one;tenth of a degree. A finely made one may be'ten times better, or accurate to within one hundredth of a degree. Hut there is an instrument in use by Bstronomers ihat is considered to be one million times more sensitive than the best thermometer, and this : is tha Speclro-Bolometer, which is considered topable of recording the one-hundred« millionth of a degree of heat or cold. Not only that, but it will take the light or heat as if comes from the sun, and, sifting it out one part from the other, give us a record of its different constituents. For we must always Bear in mind that the light which teaches us from the sun, or any of the ' pfcars, is it combination In which more of - something may be present -to-day than ' was there yesterday, or. evon an hour back. As to actual intensity, ■ under similar conditions of cloudless sky'arid time of . day, Gtc., it ba« been found that a variation of'ten degreeß ia not uncommon in the solar radiation. "It is to . this power to find out the distribution of solar onergy,- or the J relative - energy in the different parte of its.spectnun, that we must look for the solution to such a question as that put-forward in the present instance,' continued Mr. Ward. "The main thing to bear in mind is the composite, character of light; In the rainbow tinted band, which we see in'the tele-spectro-scope' when it is turned on the sun, we have waves of energy of varying intensities, more of one being present at one time than another. There is the well-known fact that the light from one portion of this band is very poor, anotner part very rich in the power to disturb the particles in the film of the photographic plate. Lenses are made so that tney bring the cor-i rect, or actinic, portion to the plate. - "If we go further afield there is the effect of the ultra-violet rays, the radioactive light, on the skin. In one case, reported a few years ago, a scientist who had worked in certain of these rays without properly protecting his arms found ultimately the whole of those limbs covered by a species of wart, right up to the elbows. The medical men could do nothing for him, and 'ns the growth was spreading towards his . body it was proposed to amputate both limbs as the only way of saving his life.

"We have to bear in mind that the human body is a highly 'organised chemical laboratory, into which raw

material is entering and being made up into substances of great complexity, substances which may easily b,e disturbed in their distributive.' effects by too muoh or too' little of a certain kind of sunlight, or sunheat. There are, for instance, the coloured pigments so important to our welfare; the rod col-, ouring matter of tho blood, dr.tho greet*chlorophyll of the (plant, without which either must soon dwindle, and die, for they absorb the light energy of tho sun; and the future chemical changes m both would stop without the eolar constituent. Anothor point wo may bear in mind is -that certain light and heat rays, and those only, favour the produc--tion of minute organisms, that attack other life in various other, ways. If an abnormal quantity of these rays entei into tho daily supply of sunlight, largo quantities of the offensive bacteria are produood, and tho misohief is 'in the air.' ."Interesting experiments," Mr. ward went on to say, 'Tiavo boon made ui erecting acts of variously coloured glass, shades over plants and vegetables. -Tho idea was to subject certain plants, to the influence of sunlight of a particular quality, giving one the bencht of the blue, another the, yellow, another the redy aiid so on. Interesting ohangea were found to follow, and those changes implied , important variation: iin_ the chemistry of the plants. It is well known that our people in India weai yellow, because this ' colour stops _ the entry to the body of certain qualities of the sunlight injurious to the body of a European. Again, there are certain diseases —measles, and 'small-pox, etc.— which have been found to yield moro readily when the influence of red light has been brought to bear upon them. Tho light waves of tho order admitted being apparently 'unfavourable to the bacteria of those and kindred .diseases. "Another suggestion in regard to the power of light is furnished by the threa rays of the radio-activo matter. If these are taken in the order of their intensity, and ; we ■ callthem, in ' that ordor,. the Alpha, Beta, and. Ga'mma rays,' or radiations, then it is found that they are distinguished chiefly by a remarkablo difference in the power to penetrate opaque siibstances. Now, when a sheet of. aluminium onfy ono five hun. dredths of an inch in thickness is placed before the Alpha rays. they are immediately' stopped-. But it will require a plate at least one-fifth of an inch in thiokness to stop, the Beta rays ; and one no less than about twenty inches thick to stop the Gamma rays. Therefore their penetrating- powers arc as 1: 100: 10,000. It is considered that tho Alpha and Beta rays consist of minute particles, tho size and energy' content of. which can. be measured, while the Gamma rays aro waves, or disturbances in the ether, propagated outwards, from the ■ radio-active substance with the velocity of liglit, which movea 187,000 miles a second. "Now a point of some interest is found in the Beta ray being identified with the passage of electricity. It has been termed the-electron, or electricitybearor, and the theory has been put for-; ward by Mr. Maunde, of Greenwich Observatory, that when tho siin, during the active period, brings a large spot in line with its centre and the. earth, a stream of energised, or radio-active particles reach the earth, and immediately .the magnetic and electrical forces of the earth are stirred into abnormal aotiyity. Magnets twitch, and swing their needles m a most unaccountable manner, while eleotrical wires and cables refuse.to.iteke any terrestrial messages, being already full of celestial ones. It is on record that a . sudden, outburst of energy in a- sunspot, observed by two well-known observers in England, was almost immediately followed ■ by the above phenomena, and in addition brilliant aurorae at each of the poles, on tie' same evening. "At this stage you will naturally inquire, how' : is the ,: suri , - , 'bebaving 1T ' I just now? .Well, for the last few weeks he has been unusually active. Many largo spots and great 'streams,' as are termed those long areas of disturbed' 'solar territory which are generally arranged in the direction of tne sun's rotation. Very large fields of the brilliant markings known as faculae have been present. On February 10 there were seven centres of eruption ,on the visible hemisphere of the sun, and on the 4th' to the 9th of this month no less than five', •two being of great dimensions. On the morning of the 10th Mr. Allison and I observed a very unusual phenomenon, in the shape of a line of brilliant, material, crossing a great spot area. It was about twice the usual brilliancy of the photosphete. On' the_ 13th, _ last Monday , morning, when this portion of t'he sun was just on the edge, turning away from us, a prominence of unusual brilliancy, ana about 90,000 miles in was observed over, the region mentioned. A record of great activity is thus shown to be present at this timo.

' "This intimate connection and sympaffietio .responsiveness between the sun and the earth being established," said Mr. Ward, "the most' important point, requiring the clearest evidence, is that of the variation in the chemical nature of the sun's light. Efforts have been made to connect the condition of the sun, tflien muoh' 'spotted,' with plentiful-harvests,. ;. and a few', noted astronomers have contended that cheap food and many sunspots were almost inseparable companions. If the sun were directly responsible for the paralysis we should logically expect it to be prevalent all over the Southern Hemisphere, where the sun, during the last month or two. has been most potent, and particularly at the bathing centres of 'all countries in this Hemisphere. For it is at those places that children, especiallv, and many adults, go with very little covering against the effect of sunlight. Then_ again, the effect on the bodies of i children would be, much greater, one would espeot, in a given time, than upon adults. How easily may a person get affected even by exposing the upper part of the' feet, when paddling on' the beach at midsummer! I recall many cases of the kind when the feet became, greatly enlarged, and. remained so .for about a week, and high fever prevailed for- the first or second day following. "Taking these points into account," said Mr. Ward in conclusion, "he would be a bold man who would say that the sun is-not accountable for the mischief, for as it has already been shown' the sun inay. get to work more directly on the chomistry of the body, as the biochemist of to-day knows, or it. mayin a 1 slightly more indirect way bring it about through those micro-organisms of which Nature makes such lavish use to accomplish 'her ends."