August 25, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



259 



sion, the dirt, especially on rainy and 

 muddy days, were increasing and the desire 

 for separate quarters for this daily throng 

 was constantly growing more insistent. 



Up to the end of 1908 while the house 

 patients totaled 10,936 there had been 

 180,555 patients cared for in the out-pa- 

 tient clinics. This is a large number, but it 

 covers many years. For the last year, 

 1915, the number cared for in this clinic 

 was only 150 less than 26,000, largely over 

 2,000 patients every month ! For the seven 

 years from 1909 to 1915 the total number 

 was 156,385. This year, 1916, will bring 

 up the number for the past eight years to 

 more than had been treated in the 42 years 

 after the little hospital was started on 

 Ninth Street in 1867. 



When Dr. Mitchell passed away early in 

 1914 the opportunity came for relieving 

 the hospital itself from this burden and at 

 the same time for founding a worthy and 

 spontaneous memorial in the hospital to 

 which he had given of his best for so many 

 years of his busy life. A large committee, 

 numbering fifty to sixty, consisting of the 

 members of the board, the members of the 

 medical and surgical staff and assistants 

 and many women was formed with Dr. 

 Charles W. Burr as chairman, Mr. Charles 

 Sinkler as secretary, and Mr. John W. 

 Brock as treasurer. Through their abound- 

 ing efforts even in the depressing financial 

 conditions preceding the Great War the 

 money to erect the memorial was obtained. 



Right opposite to the hospital, across 

 Seventeenth Street, stood the parish house 

 of the chapel of the Epiphany Episcopal 

 Church, unused and for sale. The lot meas- 

 ures 80 feet, 9 inches on Seventeenth 

 Street and is 107 feet deep. It was pur- 

 chased for $40,000. The alterations, fur- 

 nishings and equipment have cost about 

 $20,000 additional, a total, therefore, of 

 $60,000. It is away from and not physically 

 a part of the hospital, yet is within a few 



steps,- convenient of access yet keeping all 

 noise, dirt and possibility of contagion 

 away from the house patients, whose quiet 

 comfort and speedy recovery are thereby 

 greatly promoted. 



Had Dr. Mitchell himself been consulted, 

 no memorial more pleasing to him could 

 have been devised. No stately mausoleum, 

 useless alike to the living and the dead, 

 would have appealed to him. A busy clinic 

 where thousands upon thousands will be 

 helped back to joyous life because it is a 

 useful life — this I am sure he would have 

 thought the most grateful homage from his 

 many friends. W. W. Keen 



A NOTE ON THE SERUM TREATMENT 



OF POLIOMYELITIS (INFANTILE 



PARALYSIS) 1 



The epidemic of poliomyelitis that is pre- 

 vailing at the present time so extensively in 

 New York and in some degree widely through- 

 out the United States has led to many in- 

 quiries being made regarding the serum treat- 

 ment of the disease, and particularly of the 

 stage to which the treatment has advanced. 

 This brief paper is intended not only to an- 

 swer such inquiries, but also to provide a basis 

 for the wider employment of the treatment 

 where the difficult conditions surrounding the 

 obtaining of the immune human serum can 

 be surmounted. 



It was demonstrated by Flexner and Lewis, 2 

 and afterwards confirmed by several investi- 

 gators, that monkeys which had recovered 

 from an attack of poliomyelitis induced ex- 

 perimentally were not subject to successful 

 reinoculation with the virus of the disease. 

 This was followed by the detection by Romer 

 and Joseph 3 and later by others in the blood of 



i From The Eockef eller Institute for Medical 

 Keseareh, New York. 



2 Flexner, S., and Lewis, P. A., "Epidemic 

 Poliomyelitis in Monkeys, ' ' fourth note, J. A. M. 

 A., 1910, LIV., 45. 



3 Homer, P. H., and Joseph, K., Munch, med. 

 Woch., 1910, LVII., 568. Levaditi and Land- 

 steiner, Cornp. rend. Soo. de biol., 1910, LXVIII., 

 311. Flexner, S., and Lewis, P. A., "Experimental 



