1912] Rosenaii & Bnies — Transmission of Poliomyelitis by Stomo.rys 193 



spoken this morning/ all of whom have emphasized the point 

 that the disease shows little or no tendency to spread in crowded 

 districts, in schools, in institutions, in asylums, in camps and in 

 other places where one would expect a disease spread by contact 

 through secretions of the mouth and nose to spread most readily. 

 We huve in mind the fact that many cases of the disease have 

 been brought into asylums and hospitals throughout the State 

 of Massachusetts, in all stages of the infection; yet secondary 

 cases have not occurred under such circvnii stances. On the con- 

 trary the disease prevailed in Massachusetts more particularly in 

 rural and country districts sparsely settled. 



Another reason that led us away from the theory of contacts, 

 and made us believe that we were not dealing with a contagious 

 disease in the ordinary sense of that term, was the close analogy 

 between rabies and poliomyelitis. All investigators in labor atoiies 

 who have worked with these two viruses have been struck with 

 the similarity between rabies and poliomyelitis. Both virvises are 

 diffused widely throughout the body, both exist in special concen- 

 tration in the central nervous system, both are filterable, etc. 

 Rabies being a wound infection made us conjecture that polio- 

 myelitis may also be similarly transmitted. 



Our experience with yellow fever, perhaps more than anything 

 else, influenced us concerning the probable mode of transmission 

 of poliomyelitis. It had been the privilege of one of us to work 

 with yellow fever before and after the mosquito days, and many 

 analogies came to mind which made us believe that poliomyelitis 

 also was not a contagious disease. 



All the various reasons that influenced us in turning from con- 

 tagion to some other mode of transference need not engage our 

 attention now, for the history of this part of the work has been 

 ably and accurately given by Dr. Richardson in the paper which 

 he has just read. In justice to Dr. Richardson we desire to state 

 that all the essential conclusions of his paper were arrived at 

 before he knew of the results in the laboratory with the monkeys. 



The work which we now briefly desire to report consists in 

 exposing monkeys during all stages of the disease to the bites of 

 Stomoxys calcitrans. The monkeys were infected in the usual way 



1 Before the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography, at Washington, D. C 

 September 27, 1912. 



