ACUTE ASCENDING PARALYSIS AMONG TROOPS

Abstract

Among the hitherto little known diseases that appeared among the troops in France was a nervous affection of considerable rarity, but of such uniformity in symptomatology and general course that it easily became evident that this was a true disease entity. Gordon Holmes reported a series of cases of this condition in 1917, and later Bradford, Bashford and Wilson,¹in an excellent article, reported at considerable length on the disease from observations on a series of thirty cases. The comparative rarity of the condition may be judged from this number as it represented all they could assemble from the large number of British troops in France, and it probably represents a goodly proportion of all the cases that occurred. The writer saw four or five of these cases in eleven months' service with the British Expeditionary Forces, and in nine months' service with the American troops in France, but