RELATION OF TONSILLECTOMY AND OF ADENOIDECTOMY TO THE INCIDENCE OF POLIOMYELITIS

Abstract

There has been an increasing interest in the relation of tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy to poliomyelitis in recent years. A high incidence of the bulbar form has been consistently reported among the patients with poliomyelitis who had had their tonsils and adenoids removed a short time prior to the illness. The number and type of such cases of poliomyelitis previously reported are listed in table 1 according to the day after tonsillectomy¹that the disease developed. The high proportion of cases of the bulbar form of poliomyelitis occurring shortly after tonsillectomy is paralleled by the results of Sabin's experiments on monkeys.²He found that injection of moderate amounts of virus into the tonsillopharyngeal region produced poliomyelitis with involvement of the nuclei of the cranial nerves in 13 of 16 monkeys, while there was involvement of these structures in only 15 of 250 monkeys in which the disease developed after