THE DIAGNOSIS AND SERUM TREATMENT OF ANTERIOR POLIOMYELITIS

Abstract

In the treatment of the acute stages of poliomyelitis the application of immune serum from human beings who have recovered from the disease has been recommended by Netter,¹who used such serum in a small series of cases. His conclusions were that the serum was beneficial in poliomyelitis. Later, Flexner and Lewis²carried out some experimental work in monkeys, and showed that the intraspinal injection of immune serum twenty-four hours before the intracerebral inoculation of a fatal dose of virus acted as a preventive against the disease. On the basis of these results, the work with immune serum was taken up at the Willard Parker Hospital, at the Minturn Hospital and in the private practice of a number of physicians to whom the serum was supplied for treatment of suitable cases. It was soon realized that the cases in the preparalytic stage of the scase would bc thc