Word: polio
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...edition of the famed International Bulletin's newest volume: Infantile Paralysis. The Bulletin, which contains the latest words of 25 world-scattered polio experts, is edited by enthusiastic Dr. William Leo Colze of Brussels, now in Manhattan. U. S. publisher and distributor is the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, headed by Presidential friend Basil O'Connor, who administers funds raised at the President's Birthday Balls. Nuggets of information...
...Polio is a cosmopolitan disease, heedless of climate, as deadly in the Arctic as on the Equator. But for some reason, more than half of all cases in the world occur in the U. S. and Canada, in the summertime. Reported cases in the U. S. from 1915 to the end of 1939 total 139,337. About 75%, of polio victims do not develop paralysis, and countless children pass through mild, "abortive," flu-like attacks, which produce complete immunity...
...Contrary to popular opinion, no vaccine, serum or drug has yet been devised that will give immunity, check the progress of the disease, or prevent final paralysis. Most polio workers now believe that the virus enters the body through the nose. Two years ago, Dr. Edwin William Schultz of Stanford University tried to protect 5,000 Toronto school children against the disease by flushing their noses with antiseptic zinc sulfate solution. The experiment, said Dr. Schultz in the new Bulletin, was a flat failure. But doctors still think nasal sprays a hopeful idea, hope some other chemical may prove more...
Oestrogen. One of the few facts known about the polio virus is that it usually enters the body through the delicate mucous membranes of the nose. Five years ago, while studying polio epidemics in Massachusetts and Vermont, Dr. William Lloyd Aycock of Harvard noticed that polio often ran in families, even when brothers and sisters were living far apart. He suspected that children of these susceptible families might have inherited unusually thin nose linings, easily penetrated by the polio virus. So he decided to set up "virus barriers" of tough new cells in the nasal membranes of monkeys by injecting...
...divided 48 monkeys into two groups. Group One was given oestrogen injections, then nasal sprays of polio virus. Group Two was given no oestrogen but was merely infected with the virus. Result: Only twelve members of Group One came down with polio, 22 members of Group Two. Most likely, said Dr. Aycock last week, artificial thickening of their nasal membranes protected the first group of monkeys against the disease. Whether oestrogen barriers might also protect human beings, he did not venture...