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21
The difficulty about Infantile Paralysis is that no one has yet discovered quite
all the facts about how it is spread, and it is only when we understand how the
disease is spread that we begin to learn how we may control the spread of this
disease.
I do not think there is any reasonable doubt but that a person suffering from an
acute attack of Infantile Paralysis is infectious, and at this stage the infection is
carried by invisible droplets which are inevitably spread from our mouths every time
we speak. In other words it comes within the same category as the coughs and
colds, concerning which it has been said " coughs and sneezes spread diseases",
but it seems quite certain also that this is not the whole of the picture, and
particularly in times when there are not a large number of cases the spread takes
place in quite another way. What way this may be is not very well known although
it is suspected that the infective agent remains in the bowels long after the acute
stage of the attack of Infantile Paralysis has passed off. Of course, if this be so,
personal hygiene must be a very important point in stopping the spread of Infantile
Paralysis.
What we can do in the present time is to isolate so soon as possible people who
may be suffering from Infantile Paralysis, and here I want to say how thankful I am
that the people of Barking have whole-heartedly co-operated with us and have
allowed their children to go into an Isolation Hospital, even where we have not been
able definitely to say this is a case of Infantile Paralysis. This early isolation is the
best protection for the children as a whole in curbing an outbreak of Infantile
Paralysis.
The liaison with our colleagues in general practice was good. We were
privileged to be able to co-operate with them almost instantly—cases were brought
to our notice even before a diagnosis could be definitely made, and the intelligent
co-operation of the public most certainly tended to diminish considerably the
outbreak of Infantile Paralysis.
IMMUNISATION.
Question:—Is immunisation proof against infectious disease ?
Answer:—This is an actual question which has been put to me—indeed it is
a question which is always cropping up, and sometimes people take a very poor view
when in answer I say " it all depends".
Generally speaking the public can rest assured that if you are dealing with a
disease which people rarely have more than once in a lifetime, it can be hoped
either that there is immunisation which will give protection against that disease or
that such an immunisation may be discovered at a reasonably early date, but where
you find you are dealing with a disease which occurs time and time again during the
course of a lifetime, then the problem of creating protection by some method of
immunisation is almost sure to be remote.