McCormick messenger. (McCormick, S.C.) 1902-current, August 26, 1937, Image 3
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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?
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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.