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BACTERIOLOGY. 
be screened to prevent the mosquitoes from biting 
them. In countries where the infection prevails all 
houses should be screened. Such measures as these 
rendered the Panama Canal Zone, formerly a hotbed 
of yellow fever, a safe place in which to live. 
Acute Anterior Poliomyelitis. 
This is an acute infectious disease affecting the 
gray matter of the spinal cord, causing paralysis of 
groups of muscles. It occurs in epidemic and sporadic 
form. It affects children particularly, and while the 
mortality rate is low the deformities resulting from 
the paralysis are very disfiguring. 
Recently Drs. Flexner and Noguchi, at the Rocke¬ 
feller Institute in New York, have been successful in 
cultivating an organism from the spinal cords of fatal 
cases of this disease. By inoculating monkeys with 
the cultures, they have reproduced the disease, and, 
after the death of the animals, have recovered the 
organism from the spinal cord. 
How the infection is spread is not known. It is 
assumed that the discharges from the nose and throat 
are infectious; so they should be collected and de¬ 
stroyed. As an added precaution the patient should be 
isolated. 
The treatment of the patient with the blood serum 
of recently recovered cases has been attended with 
some degree of success. The serum is introduced 
directly into the spinal canal by lumbar puncture. The 
earlier in the disease the serum is given the better is 
