PRACTICE OF MEDICINE AND HYGIENE 



before the fourth day, with one death a mor- 

 tality of 9 per cent. Among those injected 

 later in the disease, the mortality was higher. 

 At the present time, among groups of cases of 

 all degrees of severity, hopeful and not hope- 

 ful, with the antitoxin the mortality is under 

 25 per cent.; among the same classes of cases 

 not treated by antitoxin the mortality is 80 

 per cent. The efficiency of the antitoxin is be- 

 ing improved by constant experimentation. 

 Dunn, of the Harvard Medical School, be- 

 lieves the value of this serum to be comparable 

 to diphtheria antitoxin. Another serum for 

 meningitis is in process of development* 



Acute poliomyelitis, or infantile paralysis, Polio- 

 the disease which leaves children with perma- myelitis. 

 nently paralyzed muscles, is unknown as to its 

 cause and mode of dissemination. Its effects 

 are so disastrous that it is of much medical and 

 social importance. Autopsies show a charac- 

 teristic lesion in the spinal cord. No curative 

 or preventive treatment is known. Recently 

 it has been observed in epidemics in various 

 parts of Europe and America, but sporadic 

 cases seem everywhere distributed. 



In 1909 Landsteiner and Popper published 

 the first reports of successful inoculation of the 



87 



