In the course of a few days these signs may wear off and the child get well without any further trouble. They are such as are seen in hunareds of cases of child illness, passing off without treatment beyond restriction of food and perhaps a dose of physic. It is only in the presence of an epidemic that they are sufficient to create alarm. These symptoms, apart from poliomyelitis, are common in childhood. In the majority of cases the disease starts suddenly with such symptoms as vomiting, sore throat, fever, headache and other signs of a cold. The incubation period, that is the time elapsing between gaining the infection and appearance of the earliest symptoms, is between seven and fourteen days. The symptoms of these stages appear in the scheme shown by the chart on this page. There are a number of distinct types of the affection, the signs of which are determined by the particular part of the nervous system involved.įor convenience and clearness the following stages of poliomyelitis may be mentioned: (1) Abortive. POLIOMYELITIS is considered to be a generalized systemic infection due to a filtrable virus which affects chiefly the brain or spinal cord, or both, resulting in the minority of cases in paralysis of muscles of the bodyĬontrolled by the nerve cells at the seat of infection.
This assured, there can be no danger in health officials, medical men, nurses and other qualified agents publishing the essential facts concerning any disease. Just one consideration is imperative the information given must be as reliable as possible. The accumulated evidence over a long period of years goes to show that education in public health has had a decided effect in the control of such maladies, for example, as tuberculosis, syphilis, cancer, diphtheria and many others. They are more likely to be disturbed if they suspect that the facts respecting poliomyelitis or any other epidemic affection are being suppressed. There is little likelihood that statement of the facts harmfully affects the public. It is chiefly through the press that the mass of the public gain information in respect to disease in general. Just as in every other preventable disease, publicity regarding poliomyelitis is of high value. Even in these, the initial damage disappears to a large degree in many cases in others, judicious treatment frequently works wonders in the rehabilitation of the paralyzed child. Its death roll does not begin to reach those of scarlet fever, measles or diphtheria, and paralysis of muscles appears in less than twenty-five per cent of the cases. The incidence of poliomyelitis is' less than one tenth of any one of the other common diseases of childhood.
There is no way in which to splint the crippled heart. In the latter, splinting and exercise will do much to remove or mitigate the disability. The remote effects of rickets in some countries are quite as serious, and it is beyond all question that the crippling effect of scarlet fever on heart, kidneys and ears, is far more disastrous than the crippling effect of poliomyelitis. It is probable that the crippling due to motor accidents reaches, if it does not surpass, that o.f poliomyelitis. The crippling effects of the affection, deplorable as they are, do not begin in numbers, nor perhaps in disability, to compare with the crippling incidental to the bone and joint affections of tuberculosis, often the result of the use of raw milk. There can be no sadder sight than to see a handsome young girl, with the prospect of a long and happy life before her, suddenly stricken by an unseen agent, her life shattered, her limbs rendered more or less useless from infantile paralysis, while her brain remains as clear and alert as it ever was.ĭespite all this, there is no occasion for panic about an outbreak of poliomyelitis.
It is perhaps the most frightful of all the diseases of children, not so much from the numbers of cases nor the resulting mortality, but because of the fact that in some of the cases the victim is crippled. A CUTE ANTERIOR poliomyelitis, often called infantile paralysis or “polio,” is known on the European continent as Heine-Medin's disease,įrom the names of the men who first gave a clear description of the malady.
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