Infantile paralysis in Massachusetts during 1910.

  • Massachusetts. State Board of Health.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Infantile paralysis in Massachusetts during 1910. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    (2) The knowledge that the infection may persist in the nasopharynx in monkeys for long periods. (3) The possibility of diagnosticating after recovery the character of abortive cases. (4) The possibility of early diagnosis by means of lumbar puncture. (5) The possibility that hexamethylenamin may be in monkeys at times a preventive of infection, but does not apparently control established infection. During the year 1910 the Massachusetts State Board of Health con- tinued for the fourth consecutive year the investigation of infantile paralysis as it occurred in the State. ^ The disease having been made a reportable one in November, 1909, the Board received notice of cases reported by physicians, and to them blanks were sent to be filled out and returned. Dr. Philip A. E. Sheppard and Dr. T. P. Hennelly were employed by the Board to investigate the cases at their homes, to make an intensive study of epidemic centers and to see as many other cases reported as practicable. The scope and direction of the inquiry have again been supervised by an advisory committee, con- sisting of Dr. Theobald Smith, Dr. Milton J. Eosenau, Dr. James H. Wright and Dr. John Lovett Morse, who have met at frequent intervals the secretary of the Board and the members concerned in the inquiry. The Legislature of 1910 generously appropriated the sum of $5,000 for the purposes of this investigation. The data relating to the disease in the State during the year 1910 will be here presented, and later, in another form, will be presented those con- clusions that seem warranted by a study of the disease in Massachusetts for four years, with certain general considerations with regard to the disease. The investigation will be continued in 1911 on a more extended scale, $10,000 having been appropriated for the purpose by this year’s Legislature. There are three classes of- cases to be reported on: — (1) The total cases reported by physicians with their location, — 845. (2) The number of cases for which blanks were filled out, — 601. (3) A group of cases carefully studied by the medical investigators of the Board, — 200. The groups of cases considered in various respects will, therefore, differ in number, more space in general being allotted to the 200 carefully studied than to the others. The record of the last four years is as follows: — • Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., 1908, CLIX, p. 131; Ibid., 1909, July 22; lUd., 1910, CLXIII, p. 37; Am. Jour. Pub. Hyg., November, 1910, p. 875.