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f «j McCORMICK MESSENGER, McCORMICK, S. C.. THURSDAY, AUGUST 26, 1937 Infantile Paralysis Wave May Let Science Test Preventive Nasal Sprays Save Laboratory Monkeys, But Will They Work on Humans? t r~’ m I m $ . ' JC : ik!^ HI Ilii • S ■ i Hero monkey—that’s what science calls the tiny rhesus monkey, like the little fellow here, whose nose is being sprayed in an experiment to test a preventive for infantile paralysis; thousands of monkeys have died in the cause. If the sprays prove successful on humans it may mean the end of pitiful cases like thatjpf the little girl above. The annual, nation-wide series of Fresident’s Birthday parties helps to raise funds for the re search work; a scene from one is also shown. * By WILLIAM C. UTLEY W ITH a wave of infantile paralysis assuming serious proportions in the south cen tral region of the United States, science may find its long- awaited opportunity to make mass tests of nose sprays as a means of preventing the dread, crippling disease. Nasal sprays have proved nearly 100 per cent effective upon labora tory monkeys, which respond to poli omyelitis (infantile paralysis) in the same way humans do. But until an extensive outbreak of the disease occurred there was no chance to conduct experiments upon humans, for the lives of large numbers of persons must not be endangered un necessarily. Now that outbreak may be at hand, for the south central regions are reporting an increase in “polio” cases far over the normal increase which comes with • the summer months. Between May 9 and July 24 there were, according to the United States public health service, 486 cases reported from the west south central region, as compared with only 18 cases for the same pe riod of 1936 and 65 cases for the same period of 1935. During these weeks the east south central region reported 317 cases as compared with 234 in 1936 and 57 in 1935. There was some indication of the spread of the disease eastward. Doctors hope that the nose spray will be proved definitely successful in its application to human beings, for it is more than a century since the first written account of poliomye litis was made by a trained physi cian. English Doctor Started Crusade. Even so, progress has been phe nomenally rapid in the light of the age of the disease, for it is prob ably as old as mankind. But it was only 102 years ago that D^. John Badham, of Worksop, Eng- land, moved by the condition of four tiny patients, pleaded through the medium of medical journals for oth er doctors to come to his aid with suggestions for the cure of a dis ease nobody knew anything about. Dr. Badham’s paper, telling of the plight of the four crippled young sters doomed to pathetically unhap py lives, launched one of the great est crusades in medical history. Poorly equipped as they were, doc tors of the Nineteenth century did not hesitate in responding to the pio neering Badham’s call for assist ance. Get on Trail of Germ. Only five years later, Jacob von Heine, German orthopedic surgeon of Cannstaat, made public an im portant study of infantile paralysis. His practice brought him in contact with many cases of deformed limbs in children. A shrewd observer, he noticed something about young par alytics which other medical men had largely overlooked. He saw that paralysis was the result of some kind of acute disease which preced ed the appearance of muscular weakness. The discovery was epochal for, in other words, Heine perceived that paralysis in children didn’t just hap pen—it had a definite antecedent rause. He won for himself a place e ! horcr in ranks of those battling against the spread of infantile paral ysis. It was a battle that widened to many more fronts as time wore on, and by 1885 the infectious na ture of the disease was pretty gen erally accepted. Yet it was not until 1908 that the first real advance was made in the search for a germ. Then Land- steiner and Popper, in Petris, inject ed portions of the brain and spinal chord, taken from a fatal human case of infantile paralysis, into some monkeys. They succeeded in infecting the monkeys with the dis ease, thus putting it on an experi mental basis for the first time. Only a short time later several doctors almost simultaneously managed to pass poliomyelitis from one monkey to another. They were Flexner and Lewis in New York, Leiner and Von Weisner in Vienna, and Landsteiner and Levaditi in Paris. The way was now cleared to studying the mechanism of the dis ease. It was indicated how the germ was spreading, but scientists still had not banded in any united effort. It took a national tragedy to wake them up. In the summer of 1916 the great infantile paralysis epidemic hit the United States. It began in a small area in Brooklyn, then spread rap idly over the rest of New York City and Long Island, eventually cascad ing over the entire country. It touched every state, and struck down more than 25,000 persons, most of them children. Health Officers at Loss. Panic swept the nation. In the mistaken belief that only those un der sixteen were susceptible, rail road officials refused to let children ride on- trains. Vigilante bands of citizens established unofficial mar tial law in many places, and health certificates were required as “pass ports” for children moving from one community to another. Health officers made every con ceivable effort to check the disease, but they still lacked a working knowledge of ways and means to combat its ravages. The epidemic died of itself, finally, and so did public terror. There have been less epidemics since then; 15,000 cases were reported in 1931, and 10,000 each in the years 1927 and 1935. Medical science recognized infan tile paralysis as one of its most challenging problems and redoubled its efforts to find an answer. Foun dations, research laboratories both public and private, universities and individual physicians and research workers concentrated their atten tion upon it. But it remained for a layman, Col. Henry L. Doherty, to begin the most novel move in the battle, one which popularized the fight among all classes of Americans. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, himself a victim of infantile paralysis, in spired the move. President Roose velt’s previous interest in the cause of fellow sufferers had been repeat edly manifested by activities on be half of the Warm Springs, Ga., foun dation where victims are treated. First President’s Birthday Ball. Visiting Warm Springs in 1933, Colonel Doherty also became deep ly interested, and acquired a first hand knowledge of the research and after-treatment work going forward in this country. He saw the need for more widespread co-ordination of effort. After discussing the mat ter with the President, he conceived the idea of a gigantic series of parties which would enable millions of Americans to do their share in the war on polio. Under Colonel Doherty’s direction the mammoth party-organizing task was started. A national headquar ters was established in New York and civic-minded persons were called upon to help. The first series of parties was held on January 30, 1934, the President’s birthday. Funds Aid Experiment. So far more than $4,000,000 has been raised by the annual parties. Seventy per cent remains to fight infantile paralysis in the community where it was raised, while 30 per cent goes to the national fund, to be used for research or rehabilitation work. One important use to which the receipts from the parties was put was the development of the nasal spray preventive for poliomyelitis. How this spray came to be dis covered is a dramatic episode in medical history. The subvisible mi crobes have ever defied scientists to follow their meanderings. Yet, after long and brilliant experimen tation, scientists in laboratories in New York, Chicago, Stanford uni versity and London at last found out that the nose was a doorway to the polio virus. In the laboratories of the United States public health service, Charles Armstrong, a “microbe hunter,” de cided that if he could find some means of blocking that doorway, there would be no way for the dead ly germs to attack. For three years he experimented with a whole drove of rhesus monkeys. Finally he found what he wanted. By washing the insides of the monkeys’ noses with a weak solution of picric acid and alum, he was able to save 24 out of 25 monkeys exposed to a hot, ex ceptionally dangerous infantile pa ralysis virus! Confusion Hampers Test. Armstrong was confident that if his solution worked with monkeys it ought to be effective on humans. But he was forced to wait for an opportunity to make the test. It ap parently arrived last summer, when an epidemic broke out in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. Rush ing to the scene, he won widespread support to his plan of spraying the solution into the children’s noses. He planned to have the doctors supervise the spraying and keep careful records. Unfortunately the experiment got out of hand: the doctors became swamped with de mands upon their time and many parents used the easily procurable solution without bothering about sci entific counsel on its use. After salvaging what records he could and making extensive rec ords of his own, Armstrong decided that a more powerful solution was needed. Two California scientists, working on funds supplied by the President’s Birthday Ball commis sion, supplied it. They were E. W. Schultz and L. P. Gebhardt of Stanford university, and they of fered a 1 per cent zinc sulphate so lution. Zinc sulphate had been used for years as an eyewash. They dis covered it was virtually 100 per cent effective in preventing infantile paralysis when sprayed into the noses of monkeys. © Western Newspaper Union. 'Way Back When By JEANNE SCIENTIST WAS BORN IN SLAVERY H IS master traded a broken-down race horse, worth about $300, for George Washington Carver when he was a little pickaninny just before the Civil war. Today, h'* is the pride of the negro race. A worn-out speller was the only education available to him until he was ten years old, when he attended a small school in Neosho, Mo. He slept in a barn there and did odd jobs to earn a living while learn ing. The young negro boy’s thirst for knowledge grew, and he went on to finish his elementary school education in Fort Scott, Kan., where he worked as a hotel cook, a dish washer, and a housekeeper. Later he bent over wash tubs night after night doing laundry for people, to pay his way through high school. He worked as a hotel clerk for awhile and then entered Simpson college at Indianola, Iowa, where he earned his tuition by doing odd jobs. Three years later, George Wash ington Carver went or. to Iowa State university, graduating with a de gree in agriculture. In two more insr years he won his Master of Science degree, and was made a member of the faculty, so impressive were his accomplishments in agricultural chemistry. In 1897, he took charge of the agricultural department at Tuskegee institute, u Alabama, leading negro university. The contributions George Wash ington Carver has made to agricul ture of the South are outstanding. He was among the first to advocate crop rotation for worn-out soil and he has developed hundreds of com mercially useful articles from the principal agricultural products of Southern states. From the peanut alone Carver made 285 products and from the sweet potato 118. Thomas A. Edison once invited him to work with him, but he preferred to con centrate on problems of southern agriculture. In addition to his prominence in science, George Washington Carver is an accomplished musician. • • • STAR PITCHER WAS A COTTON PICKER J EROME HERMAN (DIZZY) DEAN was born in Lucas, Ark., in 1911. Son of a poor cotton pick er, he was forced to quit school when he reached the fourth grade, because the family was so poor that the 50 cents a day he could earn in the cotton fields was a necessity. Under-nourished, poorly clothed and uneducated, as he was, Dizzy Dean always had confidence in him self. Perhaps that explains why he was able to develop what small ad vantages circumstances in life al lowed him, and develop them to championship quality. Confidence and a strong right arm hardened in TgrTT the cotton fields were Dizzy’s equii>- ment for facing life. He learned to throw a baseball with amazing speed and controL In 1929, he was signed up by Don' Curtiss, scout for the Cardinals’ Texas league. The salary was com- parativelj* small, but it looked like a fortune to the former cotton pick er. After training in Houston, he was shipped to St. Joseph, Mo., where his confidence and fast pitch ing won 17 games. Transferred to Houston, he developed rapidly and soon became star pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. Meantime, his brother Paul, or “Daffy,” also won a pitching berth on the Cardinals’. Dizzy was always the more spec tacular, the higher paid, and the more widely publicized. He has endorsed many advertised products, made a motion picture, appeared in vaudeville, and spoken over the ra dio. His recent earnings have been (40,000 or more per year. ©—WNU Service. Smart Coats for Now and Early Fall By CHERIE NICHOLAS OW is the time of year when a midseason coat becomes a wardrobe requisite. Much is de manded of this coat. It not only has to round out the summer season with a perfect touch but it is ex pected to usher in the new fall sea son with a proper style flourish. Then, too, it must be not too heavy weight for immediate wear and not too lightweight for autumn com fort. It is with cunning awareness of all these “musts” and “must nots” of a midseason coat that versatile designers fell into step, cutting ca pricious capers with tempting tweeds and featherweight fleeces, also with soft lightweight woolens. White and pastel wool coats, al ways important dots on the summer landscape, are especially good style this year being as popular for wear in town as in the country. The wide variety of weaves and patterns in these lightweight monotone wools has added much to the style interest in these casually correct coats. The white, buttonless, three - quarter length full swinging swagger coat centered in the illustration is the sort you treasure, for, accompanied by a matching skirt, it makes a most practical and stunning cos tume to wear when weather is fair, be it a midseason or a warmish autumn day. To add to its prac ticality this coat may be worn over summer dresses and the skirt may double with delightful contrast ing lightsome wool sweaters. A week-end vacation calls for one of the soft, well-tailored wool tweed swagger coats of three - quarter length. Casual and comfortable it must be. It should be styled with .4. deep, roomy pockets and broad’ lapels, hang straight in, front and! have a full swing-into-folds backline. Checks, stripes and monotones arej the gay themes that sing to riotous; color tunes. Consciously fashioned 1 for nonchalance, these wool tweedr* are indifferent to the hard knocks 1 of traveling and they never know the meaning of wear and tear. The model shown to the left tallies with this description of what a casual, practical travel coat should be. The tweed so expertly tailored with wide) rounded lapels, deep patch pockets; and wide turnback cuffs in this in stance is in brown, rust and white! check. It is worn over a beige featherweight knit wool frock with brown hand-knit scarf. Lustrous fleeces are very good; this season, especially in the polo coat style. No camping jaunt, motor trip or ocean voyage is com plete without one of these sturdy old reliables in either white or natural) shade. Cut just like those made for the men-folk with deep slash pockets, tab cuffs and vent back, a coat of this type should be included in the wardrobe of every woman who expects to run into damp winds or who will spend any time in a “don’t dress for dinner” region. The double-breasted polo coat pictured to the right is a classic. Of light weight wool fleece, it is styled with raglan shoulders, vent back, tab cuffs, stitched slash pockets, wide notched revers and wide self belt. © Western Newspaper Union. GOING HIGH-HAT By CHERIE NICHOLAS V Watch crowns! The advance fall \at fashions declare that height is the chief aim of designers. The three types that lead the millinery procession for midseason and early fall are berets, toques or turbans and the hat with a brim that takes an abrupt turn up at one side re vealing half of the coiffure. There is no doubt that millinery fashions are tending toward the extreme, and they are also very versatile. The three silhouettes pictured con vey an idea as to important mil linery gestures. The high draped toque at the top is significant of the future. The beret of velvet is featuring as a smart midseason number, and women who lead in fashion are wearing them with their summer frocks at this time. The dashing high-side-brim hat is some thing to look forward to since mil liners are featuring it in various moods often with rather spectacular feather trims. FEATURE VEILS IN MODELS FOR AUTUMN Veils which not only cover an en- j tire hat but the face and the shoul ders are the most striking feature of; many advance fall models. The large mesh veil which is dot* ted with chenille is the favored type, for wear during the daytime, but there are some handsome lace veilgj to wear for more formal occasions. 1 Most of these veils are circular in shape and are thrown over the high peaked crowns of the new hats soi that their draped edges extend well; over the shoulders. Sometimes theyj are placed over the head before the hat is put on so that the part which; covers the crown of the head serves as a crown for the hat. Another type of veil, also circular in shape, has the center cut out so that the veil fits around a crown or, edges the brim of a hat. It usually, is worn to give a downward sweep at the back, frequently extending halfway to the waistline. ^ Uneven Skirt Line Latest Style in Evening Gowns A Paris fashion house shows a practical evening gown with a short skirt in front and a definite back ward dip to a greater length. These full skirts resemble the tarleton skirts worn by ballet dancers. The material is gathered into so many folds that the skirts swing out grace fully in wide sweeps with every movement of the body. These short skirts are far more practical than floor-length ones, which are likely to get trampled underfoot when dancing, and their width and fullness make them graceful as well as practicaL Matching Hats and Heels Are Popular for Sportswear Matching headdresses and heels are providing a gala touch to sim ple summer outfits worn by attrac tive young spectators at smart Mid western country clubs. Dusty pink frocks combined with beige turbans and ostrich skin pumps with beiges colored built-up heels are a popu lar combination. On many of the smartest white ensembles, effective accents are furnished by paisley print headbands and heels.