Convalescent Serum in Preparalytic Cases of Poliomyelitis

The brilliant observations of Levaditi and Landsteiner, Römer and Joseph, Flexner and Lewis, and Anderson and Frost that immunity or neutralizing substances to the poliomyelitis virus are present in the blood serum of recovered monkeys and human beings were followed fairly promptly by the reports of Netter and his associates in France and later by Amos and his co-workers in this country on the use of convalescent serum in the treatment of the disease. The French investigators used the subdural method of injection and believed that they had unquestionably proved the procedure to be of value. They stressed the time element particularly and urged that the injections be given in the earliest stages of the disease. The American observers employed the intraspinal and intravenous routes either directly into the blood vessels or indirectly by way of the subcutaneous tissues, and their results certainly justified their conclusions, that the earlier in