Studies; Reprints Volume 33 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt: ...by so called abortive cases of poliomyelitis and healthy carriers of the microbic cause in disseminating poliomyelitis. The discovery of the experimental disease in monkeys led to the search for the virus in the nasopharynx of those two classes of persons. By far the most extensive inoculation tests published are those of Kling, Pettersson, and Wernstedt They even go beyond the phases of the subject indicated and include an investigation of the period of survival of the virus in the nasopharynx. Unfortunately this highly important study is marred by the fact that the criteria of the experimental disease in monkeys which the authors came to adopt do not conform to those which all experimenters accept as distinctive of poliomyelitis in the monkey. The point is an essential one. A close review of their protocols has led us to doubt the validity of their conclusions. The inoculation experiments which form the basis of this paper deal with this aspect of the subject. Meanwhile, it has been shown through inoculation in one instance by Flexner, Clark, and Fraser17 that healthy persons may harbor the virus in their nasal and buccal secretions. The_ instance in which the demonstration was made related to the parents of a young child acutely ill with poliomyelitis. The contact, therefore, between the carriers and the case was an intimate one. This unquestioned observation was followed by a similarly conclusive one by Kling and Pettersson," who, it may be remarked in passing, attribute failure to incite typical clinical and.anatomical eflects in their earlier experiments to the injections of insuflicient amounts of the virus. Finally, Taylor and Amoss19 have recorded two instancesone an abortive or non-paralytic case of poliomyelitis and the...