Small Comfort

Two world authorities on infantile paralysis, with laboratories in Manhattan, last week issued their opinions on the epidemic which afflicted Atlantic seaboard cities last summer and autumn (TIME, Dec. 21, et ante). The opinions gave small comfort to parents who were glad to have that disease off their minds for a few months.

Dr. Simon Flexner believes "we have a perfect right to believe that with our pres-ent knowledge of the manner in which the microbes of the disease behave, the aim of immunization will be accomplished."

Dr. William Hallock Park now was less sanguine concerning deliberately cultivated serums for this particular disease. Last season horse serum seemed to do no more good than convalescent serum from humans who had had severe attacks of infantile paralysis, which, contrary to prior reasoning, was little or no good at all. Per-haps parents and physicians notice infantile paralysis too late for serums to take effect. On the presumption that most people have had a mild attack of infantile paralysis, which they did not notice but which nonetheless protects them against further assaults, Dr. Park's associates last season injected several thousand children with blood from their parents. Only three of these children became sick.

Another of Dr. Park's observations was that the infectious stage of infantile paralysis occurs early in the disease's course. He wondered, therefore, "what good we do by isolating cases which have developed into the stage of weakness and paralysis. By that time they have already passed the infection."

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