192 Psyche [December 



in progress. Certain results have been obtained which it seems 

 advisable to announce at this juncture. In taking this action in 

 announcing work before it is completed we have not assumed the 

 sole responsibility, but have taken counsel with older and wiser 

 heads, friends for whose judgment we have the highest regard. 



When we first took up the study of this disease — infantile pa- 

 ralysis — with the State Board of Health of Massachusetts, we con- 

 sidered all possible modes of transference of the virus from the 

 sick to the well, but gradually focussed our attention upon the 

 fact that the disease seemed to be spread rather directly from 

 person to person. In other words, the disease appeared to us at 

 first blush to be a "contagious" disease, but one in which mild or 

 abortive cases, missed cases, and third persons probably played 

 an important role in the transfer of the infection. We were 

 probably prejudiced in favor of this viewTJoint on account of the 

 splendid work of Wickman, whose publications we studied with 

 care. We were further influenced to regard poliomyelitis as a 

 "contagious" disease owing to the views of Flexner, who com- 

 pared it to epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis, and who regarded 

 that it spread in the light of a contact infection through the 

 secretions from the mouth and nose. The analogy to meningitis 

 was a very close one, and the experimental fact that the virus 

 could be demonstrated in the nasal mucosa of monkeys (Osgood 

 Lucas and others) seems to corroborate the suspicion that we are 

 in fact dealing with an infection spread very much as cerebro- 

 spinal meningitis is spread. 



If these assumptions were correct, then the virus should be 

 demonstrable in the secretions from the nose and throat. Rosenau 

 Sheppard and Amoss therefore injected 18 monkeys with the nasal 

 and buccal secretions obtained from 18 persons who were suffering 

 with the disease at the time, or in the stage of convalescence, or 

 from persons suspected of acting as carriers. These results were 

 negative. At the same time Straus of New York had a series of 

 negative results, and other American workers were also unable to 

 find the virus where we assumed it should be. These negative 

 results seemed to us to have positive significance, and was the 

 first definite indication that we were upon the wrong trail. 



That pohomyelitis is not a "contagious" disease was clearly 

 brought out by Dr. Richardson and other observers who have 



