Word: polio
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...polio bug is supposed to vamoose at the first frost. But this year polio is breaking the rules. California, particularly, was worried as it totted up late fall cases-as many as 140 new cases in one week...
...Most Californians blamed the unusually warm weather, pointed to a drop in cases after the arrival of cold rains and frosty mornings. But public health officials in Washington doubted the weather explanation. California wasn't the only state with loitering polio. North Carolina reported 24 new cases in the week ending Dec. 11 (last year there were five in the comparable week; in 1946, two). Cases went up, too, in Texas, Georgia, Minnesota, Iowa...
Curtis ("Buzzy") Boettiger, who recovered from a mild attack of polio six weeks ago, and his boss, Henry Morgenthau, who are making a tour of Israel for the United Jewish Appeal, were all right (except for possible jangled nerves) after a few minutes under mortar fire in Negeb...
This theory turned out to be true. The doctors proved it conclusively by exposing cut nerve ends of Rhesus monkeys to the virus of human polio. They then separated the slender neurotubules a little way up the nerve and examined them under the electron microscope. Some of them were full of tiny round specks not present in healthy nerves. By extracting the nerve samples at different times, the doctors proved that the particles crept slowly up the nerve from the point of entry. They moved about 2 mm. (1/12 inch) an hour-roughly the rate that polio infection is known...
Besides providing a starting point for the understanding of how polio gets around, the new technique of watching the virus at its dirty work may help in early diagnosis-a very important matter...