Poliomyelitis
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
INFANTILE PARALYSIS, an acute disease manifesting itself in inflammation of the gray matter of the spinal cord. It is not a disease to which adults are liable, except in rare cases, and in one of its forms it attacks the anterior horns of the spinal cord with resultant paralysis, and debilitation of certain muscles. It is now conceded that many of the great plagues mentioned in history have taken the form of acute poliomyelitis, but the disease was first diagnosed and revealed in its epidemic character during its prevalence in Scandinavia midway in the last century. Since that time modern research has made headway in discovering its causes and elaborating safeguards and correct treatment, the Rockefeller Institute taking a leading part in these investigations. It is only within the last dozen years or so that it was revealed that acute anterior poliomyelitis was capable of being communicated. The filterable but invisible virus has been located in various membranes and secretions of the human body, but its presence there has not as yet been clearly accounted for. Its admission into the body is considered, in the present state of knowledge, to be in the main through the upper respiratory canals leading to the cerebrospinal fluid. The preliminary symptoms include bronchitis and intestinal maladies, with aches, fever, and perspiration, followed by paralysis in the parts attached. The paralysis is usually permanent and no remedy has yet been found for the condition of atrophy which follows. Where the paralysis affects a vital organ the malady is fatal. Rest is a prime requisite in the treat ment of the disease, but this must be varied at proper intervals with massage policy to be pursued in the best interests and auxiliary movement of the affected limb. The further methods in vogue include the removal of the cerebrospinal fluid, followed by injection of the virus This treatment is supplemented by calisthenics directed to bringing life and movement into the dormant parts . course is similar but more severe, and serum. Where the malady affects an adult the calls for similar treatment, but is more likely to end in death.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's wrote this in 1921 it could say only that "no remedy has yet been found" and that the virus entered chiefly through the upper respiratory passages. Both points have gone: polio spreads mainly by the faecal-oral route, and Jonas Salk's injected vaccine was licensed in 1955, followed by Albert Sabin's oral vaccine in the early 1960s. A global eradication campaign begun in 1988 cut cases from an estimated 350,000 a year to a few dozen, with wild poliovirus now confined to Afghanistan and Pakistan and two of the three wild types declared eradicated. The 1921 confidence that adults were rarely attacked was also misplaced: Franklin D. Roosevelt was paralysed by a polio-like illness that same year, at 39.
Written for this edition, 2026.