Poliomyelitis

From the earliest experiences¹with the use of serums in attempts to modify the course of acute poliomyelitis, controversial points have existed, and favor has shifted from one to another type of serum. The past few years have seen popular recognition of the use of serum taken from convalescents who have passed through a frank paralytic attack of the disease. Now that adequately controlled therapeutic experiments²are available in which equal numbers of patients in the early stage in the same epidemic remained without serum, additional doubt is being cast on the practical value of this and other types of serum. In part II the experiences of all the investigators who have attempted to treat poliomyelitis in the acute stage by serums and other measures are reviewed, and it is pointed out that when these previous reports are compared with observations on the average natural trend of the