OUR BABIES

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2943, 1 December 1916, Page 3

OUR BABIES

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Published under tha auspices of the Royal J\ew Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children. "It is wiser to put a fenoo at the top of a precipico than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." INFANTILE PARALYSIS. The Nature, Manner of Conveyance and Means of Prevention of Infantile Paralysis (the Eockefeller Institute Report, continued from last week), ii Varying Individual Susceptibilities. Not all children and relatively few adults are susceptible to Infantile Paralysis. Young children are more, susceptible, generally speaking, , than older ones; but no age can be said to be(absolutely insusceptible. Note by "Hygeia.'-Infautilo Paralysis is very rare indeed in babies at the breast. A few cases occur towards the end of the first year, but more than half the cases of'infantile Paralysis arise between two and , three years of age. Seven out of eight cases occur before five years of age, and only about two in a hundred cases of the ' disease affect children between 10 and 15 years of age. I derive these figures from the recent New York epidemic; but they are fairly typical. The most susceptible period of life is between one and three vears. and nine out of ten cases occur in' children inider six years of age. . "When several children exist in a family, or in a group, one or more may bo ail'ected, while the others escape, or seem to escape. The more closely the family or groups are studied by physicians, the more numerous, it now appears, are the cases among them. This means that the term Infantile Paralysis is a misnomer, since the disease may occur without causing any paralysis whatever, or such slight and fleeting paralysis as to db difficult of detection. The light or abortive cases, as they are called, indicate a greater general susceptibility than has heretofore been recognised; and their discovery promises to have far-reaching consequences in respect to the means employed to limit the spread or eradicate foci of disease. ' Period of Incubation. Like all other infectious diseases, Infantile Paraysis does not arise ut once after exposure, but only after an intervening lapse of time, called the period of incubation. This period is subject to wide limits of fluctuation; iu certain instances it has been as short as two days, in others, it has been two weeks and possibly even longer; but the usual period does not exceed about eight days. Period of Infectivity, Probably the period at which the danger of communication is greatest is during the very early and acute stage of the disease. Judging from experiments on animals, the virus tends not to persist in the body longer than four or five weeks, except in those exceptional instances in which chronic carriage is developed; hence cases of Infantile Paralysis which have been kept under supervision for a period of six weeks from the onset of the symptoms may be regarded as practically free from danger. Protection by Previous Attack. Infantile Paralysis is one of the infectious diseases .in which insusceptibility is conferred by one .attack. The evidence derived from experiments on monkeys is conclusive in showing that an infection which . ends >in recovery gives protection from a subsequent inoculation. Observations upon human being have brought out the same fact,' which app i el »' s to , he generally true and to include all forms of Infantile Parnlysisnnmely, trio paralytic, meningeal, "or abortive,, types, which all confer immunity. ._..' ' . •. ••••; -, . ■■■;■ Basis of the Immunity. I "" The :blood. of normal uninfected, persons and monkeys is;not capable'of-de-stroying or neutralising the effect of-the virus of Infantile Paralysis...'-The .blood of persons or monkeys who havd'recovered from the disease'is.capable of de:stroying or,ncutralising'the.effect of the virus.'\Tiie.insusceptibility or,immunity to "subsequent; '. jhfection, whether ' oci,curing'.Hit human. beings after exposure or. monkeys after, inoculation, rests on the presence of the destroying substances, the -so-called "immunity-bodies," which arise in the internal organs, and are yielded to the blood. So long as these "immunity-bodies" persist in the body protection is afforded: and their presence has been detected 20 years, or even longer, after recovery from Infantile Paralysis. Experiments have shown that the immunity bodies appear in the blood in the course, of even the wildest attack of the disease, which fact explains why protection is afforded irrespective of the .severity of the'-case. , Serum Treatment. A measure of success has-been achieved in the experimental serum treatment of inoculated monkeys. Por this purpose blood-serum, derived either from recovered or protected monkeys or human beings, has been employed. The serum is injected into the membranes about the spinal.;cord, and. the virus is inoculated into the brain. The injection of serum must be repeated several times in order to be' effective. Use of this method has been made in a few instances in' France, where the blood-serum derived from persons who had recovered from Infantile Paralysis has been injected, into the spinal membranes of persons who have just become paralysed. The results are said to be promising. Unfortunately, the- quantity of the human immune serum is very limited, and no other animals than monkeqs seem, capable of yielding an immune serum, and the monk'ev is not a practicable ajnimal from which to obtain supplies. Drug Treatment. The virus of Infantile Paralysis attacks and attache.? itself to the central nervous organs. Now, Nature has carefully protected the nerve tissues from injurious materials which may gain access; to the'blood; and in any case in our attacks an the disesae we cannot avail ourselves of drugs or other substances which would gravely damage the delicate, sensitive nerve tissues, among which the Infantile Paralysis germs have established themselves. Hence it is that we have to resort to the employment of an immune serum, since serums are among the least injurious therapeutic agents. ... ■ Experiments have not yet reached the point where specific drugs are applicable to the treatment of human cases of Infantile Paralysis; . ' Tho.Rockefeller Eeport will.be continued next week.