Infantile Paralysis

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 202, 7 May 1943, Page 9

Infantile Paralysis

Changes and Questions

(Written for "The Listener’ by DR.

H.

B.

TURBOTT

Director of the Division

ot School Hygiene, Health Department)

led to changed viewpoints. In the past, the causal virus was thought to be spread by droplets emitted from the mouth and nose in speech, or coughing and_ sneezing, transferred through the air to an immediate contact’s mouth and nose, and entering the body through the nerves of smell at the top of the nose. However, French, Swedish and Australian research showed the possibility of infecting monkeys with infantile paralysis virus through the mouth and small intestine. American and Swedish research isolated the virus from en on infantile paralysis has the faeces of children with the nonparalytic type of the disease. Later, it was found that the virus could be readily found in the faeces of children with the disease, and that in epidemics it could be isolated from city sewage. Post-mortem research showed no signs of damage in those parts of the brain dealing with smell, although it was supposed to travel up the nerves of smell. It will be remembered that nasal sprays were advocated in past epidemics; now he who runs may read why they did no good. No! The virus is found in the mouth and throat region, the lining of the small intestine and the faeces, and in the motor mechanisms of the brain and spinal cord. The new view of infantile paralysis is that of a virus-caused disease, infecting the intestine and possibly the throat. In most people there are no symptoms. The virus passes from the body in the faeces, and possibly the saliva. In a few unlucky folk, the virus spreads along nerves from throat or intestine to the spinal cord, causing paralysis. As the virus gets out of the body through faeces or saliva, fingers, flies and food will be mixed up in the spread of infection. In the present epidemic in certain parts of New Zealand, every attempt to stop the spread of the virus is correct practice. Children bear the brunt of the disease, so where infantile paralysis becomes epidemic, they must be kept

from gathering together as much as possible. In view of new light on its spread, children particularly should be made to wash their hands with soap and water after each visit to the lavatory, and before eating food. Infantile paralysis terrifies because it cripples and kills. The way to think of it is as corresponding to measles-lots of people have mild measles, but very few suffer from the kidney complications. When an epidemic of infantile paralysis is recognised, it has already been infecting thousands of the population in a mild way, only occasionally finding a susceptible individual, usually a child, in whom paralysis develops. A rough American estimate holds that only one person out

of 3000 is ever likely to die of infantile paralysis, one out of a thousand to be paralysed, and one out of 500 to have the disease in recognisable form. ; Why do some people have it, and why do most people escape it? Why does the virus kill or cripple one or two children in a thousand while the rest who have it throw it off easily without damage? There is no answer to this riddle yet; individual resistance to disease, and individual susceptibility to infection in general, are still unsolved mysteries; the general key to this mechanism must be found before the damage from infantile paralysis can be kept from that unlucky one in the thousand. °