The Criminal's Track

For a suffocating victim of respiratory poliomyelitis, help in breathing may not be enough. He must be helped to cough as well, in order to clear out the mucus accumulating in his paralyzed lungs. Last week in Houston, a group of polio researchers was told of a machine that both breathes and coughs for its occupant. This "lung" operates by means of a gadget that permits it to explode a sudden spurt of air against the patient's chest. It has passed its first laboratory tests. To perfect his gadget, Columbia University Researcher Alvan L. Barach got $8,300 from the March of Dimes fund.

In the 13 years since it began as a token of esteem for Franklin D. Roosevelt, the annual March of Dimes has collected more than 1.7 billion dimes ($170 million), the bulk of which has been used to treat polio victims. But more than $13 million has been parceled out to research groups to track down and stamp out an elusive killer. So far the dimes have done neither, but they have moved closer & closer by helping to uncover a mass of evidence that will sooner or later trap the killer.

Killer's Face. It is an expensive busi ness. In order to trap a killer, researchers must first identify it. In one year the March of Dimes paid out close to $2,000,000 for virus research alone. This money helped to prove that polio is a disease caused by a whole family of viruses, three of which can be identified in the test tube.

That knowledge is little more than the hazy likeness of a criminal on a weather-beaten billboard, but it is a priceless clue to those already tracking the killer's path from patient to patient.

Researchers cannot yet say for certain how polio spreads. The virus has been found in sewage and on flies, but there is no proof that human beings pick it up directly from either. The virus has been found in healthy people, showing that man can sometimes carry it without harm. A recent survey indicated that 80% of the adult population is partially immune. Vaccination has been tried successfully on animals. Tests on mice have shown that immunization can sometimes pass from mother to child. No vaccine has been found, however, that is safe enough to try on humans.

Along the Corridors. Inside man himself, the path of the disease has been pretty well traced from its entrance through the nose or throat along the corridors of the central nervous system. Most researchers now believe that polio's havoc is wrought entirely through damage or destruction of the nerves alone. Despite millions spent in searching for a chemical cure, no way has yet been found to halt the disease, once it has started its march through the body. But new tricks in physiotherapy, orthopedic surgery, such rehabilitation gadgets as Barach's coughing lung, and more & more research, have cut the devastation of polio to the point where at least half of all paralytic cases recover with no discernible aftereffects.

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