THE CONQUEST OF DISEASE 



disease from human beings to animals. They 

 caused the disease in the monkey by injecting 

 into the peritoneum an emulsion made from 

 the spinal cord of a child which had died from 

 poliomyelitis. The monkey became paralyzed 

 in the lower extremities and died on the sixth 

 day. The experimenters were not able to 

 transmit the disease from this to other animals. 

 In the same year Flexner and Lewis, working 

 in the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Re- 

 search, published a preliminary report of a 

 series of notable observations. They caused 

 poliomyelitis in monkeys by inoculating their 

 meninges from the spinal cords of children who 

 had died of the disease. These monkeys devel- 

 oped the characteristic symptoms. From them 

 they inoculated other monkeys; and they have 

 been able thus to continue indefinitely the 

 transmission of the disease in a series of these 

 animals. 



With poliomyelitis thus in hand in the lab- 

 oratory, the first step toward its conquest has 

 been made. We may now begin to hope for 

 the interruption of the long line of dead and 

 crippled children, the victims of this once 

 mysterious malady. 



Syphilis. One of the most disastrous diseases of man- 



88 



