Evening Star Newspaper, October 31, 1937, Page 75

Part 5—8 Pages - DOCTORS’ NEW WEAPONS ROUTING INFANTILE PARALYSI Upper: Crippled by the dread infantile paralysis, this small | beneficiary of the National Birthday Ball for the President learns early her painful lesson of patience. Scientists are experimenting with nose sprays on WASHINGTON, D. C., FEATURES he Sundawy Shae i | SUNDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 3 , 1937. At top: Col. Henry L. Doherty, who has served as national chairman of the Birthday Ball for the President since inception of the movement. Lower: Surrounded by silent mementos of the ravages infantile paralysis has wreaked on the bodies of his contemporaries, this youngster is fitted to braces that will help to strengthen his crippled leg. Picric Acid, Which Makes Big Shells More Explosive and Deadly, Has Poliomyelitisé Germs on the Run—Zinc Sulphate and Iron Lung Other Indispensables. Part Five PAGE F—1 [ Upper: annually by the National Birthd Lower: The Rhesus monke; human beings. F ) One of hundreds of children crippled by infantile paralysis who received treatment as a result of the fund raised ay Ball for President Roosevelt. Y is the only animal known to science which reacts to infantile paralysis in the same way as Roosevelt Birthday Balls Big Factors in Advance. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States. All the afflicted look to him for inspiration, since he overcame all the handicaps. 'Twas at his recommendation that the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation got under way and that the great birth- day balls for the President began in 1934. This gigantic undertaking, the most widespread and novel campaign ever started to combat disease, was | conceived by Col. Henry L. Doherty, | infantile paralysis with only a simple | atomizer and a harmless solution to | spray the nose, seems almost ridicu- | lous. Yet that is exactly what the doc- tors do. | Results achieved with tnese sprays lin exhaustive experiments performed on monkeys approach the miraculous. | One type of spray, indeed, proved 100 | per cent effective In tests on animals. Now the question is asked, “Will they work just as well with human beings?” If the fight Is successful it will | mean that American medical men | it was one of the older plagues when have won over a force prevalent in |the world was young. human society since the race began.| Infantile paralysis, or poliomyelitis— Men of authority believe that the | its technical term—ravaged the people antiquity of infantile paralysis equals | who flourished back in the time of that of mankind itself. Without doubt the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty. That AMERICA GIVES FOOD ADVICE tually got under way—in England. John Badham of Worksop actually started the work. He became the first trained physician to write an ac- count of the disease. Yet it was not until 1908—less than 30 years ago— that two research workers, Land- steiner and Popper, placed the first experimental laboratory for study of the disease in animals. This was in Paris. Poliomyelitis went on an ex- Polio comes from the Greek word that means gray. STILL more concrete evidence that polio, or infantile paralysis, is an age-old disease comes from some of the ancient written words inherited by the race. Hippocrates, “The Father of Medicine,” recorded back in the fifth century B. C. how paralysis wrought havoc amongst the in- was more than 3,000 years ago. On a tombstone from that era is the epitaph of a man with a shriveled leg, typical of polio victims today. They call it polio because it attacks the gray matter in the spinal cord. Lower: Rhesus monkeys as a method of prevention for infantile paralysis. By John Jay Daly. VER old China and along the Spanish peninsula, men who man the big guns call for picric acid—a deadly weapon when mixed with other ingredients and placed in shells. It became known first as a terrible agent of death and destruction at the time of the World War. Now, picric acid, that old enemy of mankind, is used for more humani- tarian methods in the war against the dread child's disease, infantile paraly- sis. Sprayed into the nose by physi- ecians instructed in the use of special atomizers, picric acid, along with cer- tain solutions recently perfected by sci- entists, sets up a chemical blockade against the germs. Thus, by the irony of fate, one of man’s enemies is turned into a friend. Not only picric acid, but zinc sul- phate—used in eyewashes for years— enters the picture along with the “iron lung,” or respirator invented 10 years ago by Prof. Philip Drinker of Har- vard. With these three companions in their fight against the fiercest malady that slaughters the young, American scientists wage a war of their own for the preservation of life while two por- tions of the Old World—on the conti- nent and in the Far East—battle to the death with one of the same weapons, pleric acid. le methods to prevent infantile paralysis are highly ingenious by Teason of their sheer simplicity. They are based on the discovery that in- fantile paralysis attacks the nerves, that the germs enter the system by way of the nose, only place in the human body where nerves are exposed. That is why picric acid is made tnto an atomizer and set up as a chemical blockade. Close the door and the germs cannot enter, say the scientists. Simple remedy, and yet it took more than 100 years of actual re- search to get around to it. Its de- velopment is the fruit of countless numbers of research artists who ex- perimented with the germs of in- fantile paralysis in their many and dire forms. The spray solution seems to be the last word in combat method. Whether it be the spray with a picric acid base or one with sulphate of zinc. ‘With these simple remedies at hand, scientists of America now have hope of success in their far-flung drive to wipe the scourge of infantile paralysis from the face of the earth, World Study of Nutrition Is Advanced by Woman Expert in Department of Agriculture, Who Will Serve for Three Months With League Health Section. By Bass Furman. ITH a chart of how this pared for international scrutiny, Hazel K. Stiebel- Bureau of Home Economics, Depart- ment of Agriculture, sailed this week gone into in a world-wide way. Never before was such a chart Family Table in the form of a graph. Diets of ditch diggers and of coupon share croppers, of college professors and illiterates on the wrong side of the great statistical pot, where they regis- tered their shares of vitamins A, B, protein, carbohydrate and fat. When all these facts were simmered was & small all-black sector, where there was so little to spend that food was a small all-white sector where food expenditures were so high that meals. In between was a mountain of diets, good, bad and indifferent,wherein put their minds and cook stoves to it, learn to eat right. will serve for three months as a nutrition expert to the health section she said, came as the proverbial bolt from the blue. that the health section of the League of Nations really wants to do Nation eats, newly pre- ing, senior food economist in the for Geneva, where nutrition is being compiled. It's the Great American clippers, of gentlemen farmers and railroad tracks were poured into a C and D, of calcium and iron, of down to chart-summary form, there could not possibly be adequate. There all thus blessed got well-balanced all the American people could, if they On payless leave, Miss Stiebeling of the League of Nations. This honor, A LITTLE stirring around revealed something about nutrition, and ml the leaders asked Miss Stiebeling to come over. Europe, it seems, has a habit, not unknown in this country, of gathering vast stores of scientific knowledge to be carefully placed in cubby-holes. Meanwhile, those who have to struggle with the problems thus solved must blunder on without benefit of science. Contrary to this custom, Miss Stiebeling had made a series of scientific diet studies which actually were put into practice. To those still thinking of food merely in terms of the corner cash- and-carry, Miss Stiebeling's sailing should be news that there’s a big broad world viewpoint nowadays on nutrition. It's being called a “challenge to statesmanship” and “a duty of governments,” besides being a worry to every modern mother. Drop into a doctor’s office and you're likely to hear this instruction to a small boy patient: “Write down every- thing you put into your mouth this week and bring it to me next Satur- day.” As individual ills are analyzed on & food basis, so indeed are international ills. Here's how that mouthful, “The Mixed Committee of the League of Nations on the Relation of Nutrition to Health, Agriculture and the Economic Policy” (which hereinafter will be called by the name of Lord Astor, its chairman, to keep from getting mixed up on this Mixed Committee), ap- proached the vast ailments referred to it for diagnosis: “The world has just experienced the evils of a long and severe economic depression, Markets were glutted and producers were faced with ruin. At the same time caretul inquiries in & number of countries had shown how extensive was the failure to satisfy| normal nutritional requirements. | “Indeed, while owners of food stocks | were unable to find remunerative mar- | kets, some parts of the world were suffering from famine; in others,| large sections of the population were suffering from malnutrition. This malnutrition, moreover, was not con- fined to the poorest classes. “Hence the question naturally arose whether it was not the duty of public authorities to assume the responsibil ities inherent in a ‘nutrition policy. THE League Committee did not hesitate to answer that question in the affirmative. “For a nutrition policy to be effec- tive, the problem must be recognized as one of primary national importance,” it said. “It lies with governments, supported by enlightened public opin- ion, to take the lead. If governments play their parts in giving a lead to the movement, private agencies may be expected to follow with their distinc- tive contributions.” What the report recommended was National Nutrition Committees to ascertain prevaling food-consumption habits and nutritional status of all sections of the population, and to work out a program to utilize to the best advantage the teachings of science. The committee over which Lord Astor presided was so selected as to represent health, labor, agriculture, economic, financial, social welfare and administrative viewpoints on the nu- trition problem, and it advised that national committees should be simi- larly constituted. No_phase of the world nutrition (See " Page I d habitant of Thasus, Greece, in one unheppy period. How it caused the death of many persons unacquainted with the glories of picric acid, zinc sulphate and the Iron Lung. Some 23 centuries later, science now entertains its first real hope of stopping the spread of infantile paralysis. 'Twas in the middle of the nine- teenth century that polio research ac- DIET RATINGS AND EXPENDITURE FOR FOOD UNITED STATES: 1936 . ANDNRELIES WHITE PAMRIES) perimental basis, With 1937, as the culminatien of those 29 years of intensive research, the preventive weapons now in use have at last won the appreval of such a conservative force as th2 New York | | Academy of Medicine. That, ir itself, | |is a triumph, On the face of it, to say that science !can fight such a malignant discase as Widespread indorsement given the| sprays by physicians clearly indicates what the cautious medical profession thinks of them. So the question verges | on the academic. Careful study and| analysis of how effective the sprays | prove with human beings must come | before a final verdict, but the general | opinion is that they will work with | human beings if they work with ani- mals. Especially monkeys. BOUT the “iron lung” Prof.| Drinker, the inventor, first tested his equipment in Children’s Hospital, Boston, in 1928. A little girl, sufferer from infantile paralysis, was placed in the “iron lung” and lived for five d: After that time she died of heart fail- ure, superinduced by pneumonia. The next year the “iron lung” defi- nitely justified its inventor's belief. A Harvard senior was stricken with in- fantile paralysis. Taken to a hospital, he was placed in one of the Drinker machines. Within three weeks he be- gan to breathe normally. Later he graduated from Cambridge and now | walks almost unaided, goes to work| each day, drives a car. Though the newspapers carry pic- tures of the “iron lung” almost daily, laymen know little of its functions. As described by an expert, the] Drinker machine consists of a large, | airtight cylinder that resembles a horizontal boiler on a wheeled frame. The body of an infantile paralysis victim is placed inside the cylinder, the head outside. Rhythmic, gentle changes of air-pressure within the cylinder cause the lungs to inhale and exhale, though the chest muscles can- not move voluntarily. At present there are some 200 “iron | lungs” in the United States and Can- ada. Only one each in England and Australia. More are needed, though one reason for the scarcity of ma- chines is that the disease does not necessarily affect the lungs. Hence the main fight is waged by the acids —picric and sulphate. NE of the great heroes in the fight |in New York, | vear. | ties. who has served as-national chairman of the movement since its inception. Doherty first got interested in the work after he had visited Warm Springs, had seen at first hand what the terrible disease can do to poor, helpless humanity. Then he realized the need of greater effort, a concen- tration of forces to fight the plague. So he visited President Roosevelt, laid the plan before him and re- ceived enthusiastic indorsement. This 'was the start of the national birth- day celebrations to raise funds for the war against infantile paralysis. The result was, under Col. Doherty's direction, that another colonel—Carl Byoir—set up national headquarters launched a series of some 5,000 parties to enable millions of Americans to join with the sci- entists in the fight against a common enemy. Parties have been held each The next series will be on Jan- uary 30, the President’s fifty-fifth birth anniversary. To date more than $4,000,000 has been raised in ihe four series of par- Funds are divided so that 70 per cent remains in the community where the money is raised, with 30 per cent given the President to be turned over by him to the trustees of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation and the Research Commission. Last year® 14 groups of researchists got grants from the commission. These funds were used in development of the epochal nose sprays. Under present methods the birthday ball funds may be used either for in- fantile paralysis research or rehabili- tation work. One aims at discovery of ways and means to wipe out the disease; the other has to do with the after-treatment of victims. At present there are some 300,000 polio victims in this country, of which approximately 95 per cent are little children. Only those two acids, the sprays of picric and zinc sulphate, with the additional help of the “iron lung,” stand in the way of disaster, Nose-sprays? Actually they are nose- against infantile paralysis s gays to the medical men.