Indianapolis Times, Volume 43, Number 114, Indianapolis, Marion County, 21 September 1931 — Page 4
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An Expert View of Unemployment Depression and unemployment still haunt us. Observers who are no mere gloom mongers predict the worst winter since Cleveland’s second administration. Therefore, a survey of the unemployment situation by a veteran expert on the subject is worthy of serious attention. If there is any one man who can qualify as an expert, it is Dr. Jacob Billikopf of Philadelphia, director of Jewish Charities of that great city and impartial chairman of the men’s clothing industry in New York City. In a comprehensive paper delivered before the national conference of social work, he sets forth essentials in clear and convincing fashion. Armed with full concrete information on the sublet, he quickly disposes of the notion that private fharity—community chests and the like—will be able to shoulder the burdens of the coming winter: “Private charity is no longer capable of coping with the situation. It is virtually bankrupt in the face of great disaster. "With the bravest of intentions, the Community Chests, comprising as they do a multiplicity of institutions, are altogether unequal to the task ahead of us. ... Asa result of the policy of drift, and of utter lack of mastery in directing it, our government will be compelled, by the logic of inescapably cruel events ahead of us, to step into the situation and bring relief on a large scale—a scale commensurate with the vast importance and the tragedies of our problem.” Ironically enough, in spite of the traditional opposition to the dole in America, that is exactly what we rely upon in this country. Then we condemn bitterly as the dole a type of up-to-date relief in Great Britain which is in no sense a dole. "If the spirit of irony," says Paul Douglas, "were hovering over this land, he would find a source of sardonic amusement in the spectacle of a country which for a decade has protested that it did not want unemployment insurance because it was a dole, and still so protests, slowly realizing that under its boasted American methods all it can offer to those who are in great need is the real dole of public or private charity.” Turning to proposed remedies, Dr. Billikopf rules out wage cuts from the standpoint of both logic and justice. What we need most is increased purchasing power, he says. Wage cuts are unjust, becaus* wages never have been inflated. Prom 1921 to 1929 real wages increased only 13 per cent, while in this same period returns to industrialists increased 72 per cent and dividends on industrial and rail stocks increased 256 per cent. Nor is the Coue technique tried by Mr. Hoover for nearly two years any way out. “For fifteen months we were told that if we only repeated the formula of Coue —every day in every way industrial conditions are getting better and better—the depression would come to an end.” But it has not ended. Moreover, millions w T ere deceived, rushed' into the stock market to recoup earlier losses, and were scooped further and ruined. Further, such policy only postpones realistic grappling with the economic and social actualities of our current problems. Suppose we did begin to deal realistically with actuality, what would this involve? Dr. Billikopf holds that it would involve the following: 1. Planned production to meet actual needs. 2. Better control and supervision of credit. 3. Public works on a scale commensurate with our real needs and backed by ample funds. 4. Drastic revision of the insane Smoot-Hawley tariff, which‘has produced a drop in automobile exports alone sufficient to keep our whole motor industry going full blast for a month. 5. Abandonment of our silly attitude toward Russian recognition. This stands out in contrast to the shrewd policy of the other capitalistic states of the world that are reaping the commercial advantages of grownup attitudes toward the Soviet republic. 6. Compulsory unemployment insurance borne by industry. Here the plan of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers has pointed the way. Under the Chicago plan, in which benefits are provided by a fiftyfifty contribution of capital and labor, clothing workers in New York, Chicago and Rochester received $1,500,000 in 1930 and had a reserve fund of $1,000,00C left over. And the clothing industry is one of the most unstable in the country. During this same 1930, the average employment of clothing workers was only eighteen full weeks out of the fifty-two in the year. 7. Establishment of really competent and wellequipped employment agencies, comparable to those envisaged in the Wagner bill which Mr. Hoover vetoed. 8. Adaptation of the social work agencies of the country to deal not only with immediate relief, but even more fundamentally with the psychological and social causes of industrial inefficiency and wasteful consumption on the part of the individual. If anybody has a more comprehensive and wise program within the bounds of economic liberalism than this one, let him come forth with it. Britain’s Crisis and the U. S. A. Americans need not lose their heads over the British financial crisis. Great Britain’s suspension of gold payments does not touch her foreign obligations, nor does it jeopardize American investments. Although America certainly will suffer if statesmen and international bankers allow' the British emergency to cause a world panic, such a calamity can be avoided, and doubtless will be avoided. We do not want to minimize the seriousness of Britain’s problem. Her post-war economic decline requires basic readjustment of her business and foreign trade structure. She probably never will regain her position as the world's leading merchant and banker—that position, for better or worse, has passed to the United States. But she ultimately can attain prosperity as a less ambitious world power. Meanwhile, she has accumulated wealth of a century as the world’s richest nation to tide her over the period of transition and economic readjustment. That is why any panicky attitude today in retaliation to British finances would be foolish. • • * Actually, the immediate British financial crisis is more artificial than real. If she wishes to restore her gold basis she can do so easily by using—as she did in war time— her vast private investments abroad to support the pound Sterling. If aha does not return to a gold basis it will not be because she can not do so, but because a majority of her financiers and economists have come to feel that re-establishment of the gold basis in 1925—and the consequent deflation—was a mistake. .They argue that it is better for Britain to sacrifice
The Indianapolis Times (A SCRirru-HOWARD JiKWSFAPER) Owned nod published dally (except Sunday) by The Indlanapolia Tlmea Publishing Cos., 214-220 West Mnrylaud Street, Indianapolis, Ind. Price In Marion County. 2 cents a copy; elsewhere. 3 cents—delivered by carrier. 12 cents a week. Mail subscription rates in Indiana. $8 a year: outaide of Indiana. 65 centa a month. BOYD GURLEY. ROY W. HOWARD. EARL D. BAKER. Editor President Business Manager PHONE—RIItv 5551, MONDAY. SEPT. 21, 1931. Member of United Press, iicrlpns-Howsril Newspaper Alliance, Newspaper Enterprise Asbociatlon. Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.”
her position as world banker for the cake of better internal conditions. There probably would be no artificial British financial crisis today if her bankers had been' less grasping during the last year and had been less anxious to force the Labor government out of office. The budget deficit was only about half as large as the American deficit, and the Labor government already had agreed on a practicable plan for balancing the budget. But the deficit, a minor cause, was dressed up as the cause by British and international bankers determined to cut unemployment insurance benefits and overthrow the Labor government. Undernearth, the immediate cause of financial embarrassment was that London bankers had been borrowing cheap money in New York and Paris and reloaning it at high rates to Germany. London first lost gold by going to the support of Austria, and then was unable to carry her German credits—especially when Paris ard New York began calling. Hence her loss of a billion dollars of gold since July, and the necessity of emergency credits from Paris and New York, which are about exhausted. Nov/ the actiun of the British bankers, in overplaying the financial crisis to embarrass and overthrow the Labor government, has whirled back as a boomerang. It has started a run on the pound Sterling. Britons, in fright, are selling pounds wholesale and buying dollars. Os course, the New York and Paris bankers now could injure Great Britain, but it is much more probable that they will help her, since they know so well that continued British financial chaos would injure them and their countries. * * * The thing which should be disturbing the United States and France is not this artificial British emergency, but the deeper economic disease which dangerously is weakening all the world, Britain included. We mean, of course, the financial load of armaments, of war debts reparations and trade barriers like our own high tariff wall. Until there is cancellation of war debts and reparations, wiping out huge armament budgets and battering down of tariffs, the world will continue its plunge toward bankruptcy. We believe that an immediate announcement by President Hoover that he would ask congress to extend the debt moratorium, to cease naval building and to lower the tariff would turn the world tide, so great has become the financial strength and political power of the United States over the rest of the world. If we help the world we will help ourselves out of our depression. A Muscle Shoals Joker Although undiscovered in years of debate,, the country now is told that hidden in the laws are ambiguous provisions which give the President power to sell the nitrate plants at Muscle Shoals, and permit his federal power commission to lease the Wilson dam hydro-electric plant. It may be that this is true; it may be that Attor-ney-General Mitchell will rule that, technically, these dubious powers exist. But whatever the obscure legalities of the question may be, neither the President nor his power commission has the moral right to dispose of these plants independent of congress. Congress never intended to delegate its rights in this matter. The President must realize this. He should remember that his Muscle Shoals policy is under attack and contrary to the expressed will of congress. He should remember that his power commission appointments have been questioned as illegal. In the face of these facts, and because he already has blundered in the appointment of his Muscle Shoals commission. President Hoover can not with good grace exercise the questionable powers to dispose of Muscle Shoals that we are told have been discovered for him. ' W If this arrangement for using wheat and oats for legal tender goes on, one of these days we’ll be paying for a pair of garters with a bunch of radishes. Depression or no, figures certainly are improving with the return to curves. Liquor has showed up in the Philadelphia navy yard. Sailors will have at least one sweetheart in that port. A woman is suing a judge for $2,737,748. She must think he’s faom Chicago. Hoover left his 57th birthday go unobserved. Well, anyway, that's one more on him. Science is trailing steaks back to the pasture. Probably just a case of mistaken identity.
Just Every Day Sense BY MRS. WALTER FERGUSON
AN impertinent circular inquires, “How’s your profile for a Eugenie hat?” Extremely bad, if you must know. And considering how many millions of profiles are little better when it comes to this particular test, the way we’ve gone 1850 again is nothing short of ludicrous. The things are fetching enough in the fashion magazines and newspapers, but when we remember that from the Penobscot to the Rio Grande the country is running over with these dinky little head pieces, perched above profiles a good deal like mine, the whole business is disconcerting. And it leaves the lady who doesn’t want a Eugenie hat in a rather desperate and bare-headed state, for from a general view of the hat shops in every direction there are no others to be had. tt 0 BUT even this is not the sole grievance. These hats call for bustles like ham calls for an egg. They shout for sweeping skirts and voluminous petticoats. They look lost and bewildered in a world in which there is not a single reticule. They are completely forlorn without mitts and assuredly never were invented for the lady who has no hour-glass curve between her hips and her bust. No, my profile isn’t good for the Eugenie hat, and neither is my disposition. To wear one gracefully, a woman should carry smelling salts. In the business office they are an anachronism. In the subway and the theater they are a darned nuisance. I suppose, however, we shall survive and later bloom out into costumes even more inconsistent with the twentieth century. Though independence and Eugenie bonnets do not set well upon the same shoulders, so long as we keep the former we can endure the latter. The men have gone through hundreds of transformations without changing the cut of their coats, and it may be that we can retain our freedom while we . run the gamut of all the fashions that ever invaded Christendom. Nevertheless, I hope the next lady we emulate will be Cleopatra. $
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
M. E. Tracy SAYS:
The “Hunch,” as We Call It, Never Played a Bigger Part in Human Affairs Than It Does Today. NEW YORK, Sept. 21.—The Japanese strikers with their usual precision and effect, seizing half a dozen of the principal towns L in South Manchuria and making themselves masters of the situation over night. A garrulous world rubs its eyes, wondering whether this means war, but finding quick reassurance in Tokio’s emphatic “No.” Fully alive to the possibility ot j such a setup, the League of Naj tions invites Japanese and Chinese | delegates to “explain” and, after listening to them for ten minutes, expresses "satisfaction” that the "greater power,” meaning Japan, will do what it can to "localize” the row and thus preserve general peace. tt tt tt Attitude Is Curious SCARED by the naval strike and ;he prospect of a general election, British investors fall all over themselves in a stampede to get rid of some perfectly good stocks and bonds. Though involving a nation’s credit, it is the same kind of psychology that converts back-fence gossip i into a run on the village bank. For no reason in the world, British investors caused themselves to lose $750,000,000, while those in some other countries were foolish enough to engage in a ‘sympathetic” selling spree. It’s a curious thing that the prevailing attitude toward investments should grow more hysterical and emotional as auditing methods grow more scientific. tt tt tt
Hoover Hunch Wise One THE "hunch,” as we call it, never played a bigger part in human affairs than it does today. Even President Hoover seems to have fallen for it in his eleventhhour decision to talk to the legion about the bonus. In his case, it was a wise hunch. Might just as well have the thing out, as prolong the agony and suspense. tt tt tt People Won't Believe It THE New York legislature adjourns after passing the unemployment relief bill in virtual accord with Governor Roosevelt’s wishes. Reports from Washington say that the Hoover program calls for no change in the dry law and that the much-discussed White House request for census figures on the brewing industry was made for the purpose of gathering data with which to confound the wets., Possibly the census will prove that the brewing industry was of no great consequence in providing work, or revenue, but at a time when the government advertises every move that results in saving a few dollars, or in getting some poor devil a job, people will be slow to believe it. tt tt tt It’s Simple Admission WHATEVER census figures may reveal with regard to the brewing industry, income tax figures are not to be ignored with regard to the bootlegging industry. The government can’t bring such charges as it has against A1 Capone and other racketeers, without admitting that there is profit in the liquor trade. Neither can it claim that prohibition has been a success without admitting that there w;ould be more profit if the trade were legalized. tt ft tt Will They Lose More WHILE the slump in business has done much to reduce the earnings of railroads, it should not be forgotten that competing agencies of transportation also have been a factor. Under such circumstances, a raise in rates hardly could help cutting both ways. Though it might help to offset the slump, it would prove a handicap in the matter of competition. It is admitted generally that the railroads have lost some business to trucks, pipelines and waterways. If that could happen under existing rates, why isn’t it reasonable to assume that they would only lose more with a 15 per cent rise? a a tt All Thought Is National ATTORNEY-GENERAL MITCHELL says that the states are abdicating their power by shirking their responsibilities. True enough,, but the cause goes deeper than politics. We are organizing on a national basis not only in business, but in every possible field. A movement, or association no longer is considered impressive, unless it embraces the whole country, with headquarters in New York or Washington. The thought with respect to all major problems is national. Passage of the eighteenth amendment was symptomatic of this attitude.
REVEAL SECRET NOTE Sept. 21 ON Sept. 21, 1917, the secretary of state made public a note from Ambassador Bemstorff to the Berlin foreign office, dated Jan. 22, 1917, in w’hich the ambassador asked for $50,000 to be paid to influence congress to prevent war. The note said: “I request authority to pay up to 50,000 (fifty thousand) dollars in order as on former occasions to Influence congress through the organization j T ou know of, which perhaps can prevent war. “I am beginning in the meantime to act accordingly. In the above circumstances a public official German declaration in favor of Ireland is highly desirable, to gain support of Irish influence here.” Where are the largest zoos in the world? The largest is the London zoological park, London, England; the second largest is the Bronx zoo park in New York, and the national zoological park at Washington, D. G., and the St. Louis zoological park at St. Louis, are third and fourth in size.
Fatigue Speeds 111 Health
BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hygeia, the Health Magazine. PHYSIOLOGISTS who have A studied the problem of fatigue have made a significant contribution to the means for overcoming it. What the worker wants to do is to get as much done in a given time as possible, and at the same time to get it done with the least expenditure of energy. The using up of energy leads to fatigue, and continued fatigue, as has been pointed out, means ill health, inefficiency and discontent. All sorts of panaceas for pep, punch, and vitality have been offered, with the claim that they overcome fatigue or prevent its development. Actually there is little or nothing that can be taken out of a bottle that will prevent fatigue. Alcohol gives an impression of
IT SEEMS TO ME
T PLAYED truant the other afternoon and went over to see “Cloudy with Showers,” the new farce by Floyd Dell and Thomas Mitchell. Frankly, it was refreshing to sit in on a straight dramatic production after nine weeks of ballads, skits, and chorus numbers. I don’t mean that I’ve lost my enthusiasm for musical revues, but it was restful to be able to sit back and concentrate on nothing more than the plot and the acting. “Cloudy with Showers” is an amusing play. The story, while in no sense new, is interesting enough. It concerns that age-old problem of sex. This time, however, the combatants are not a generation apart in years. Rather, the very modem college girl in this particular play, while somewhat younger than her adversary, the college professor, has a considerable edge on him in the matter of sophistication. a u a Teaching the Teacher THE novelty in this case is introduced by the fact that it is the woman and not the man who suggests that two people contemplating marriage should “know each other” before taking the plunge. The end of the second act finds them planning a honeymoon in Finland. And although the heroine is dressed in little more than a bedspread and the hero is draped, fully clothed, upon the bed, there is no intimation that they really have come,to “know each other.” The dialog is racy without being offensive, and’ the first. act was as nearly perfect as one could wish. The authors displayed considerable originalty and finesse in introducing their subject and their characters. And Thomas Mitchell and Rachel Hartzell were more than convincing in their respective roles. Mitchell, especially, as the harassed, embarrassed young professor, gave a performance which stamped him as a finished actor. The role is not an easy one and calls for subtlety and restraint. Thomas Mitchell has both. nun Wild Rice and Old Shoes I WAS disappointed, however, that the play did not follow through on its original theme. It would have been interesting to have these two give the experiment a tryout. There have been countless plays and books about marriage without benefit of clergy where the situation was reversed—i. e., where the man was the protagonist for what was formerly known as a “free love” arrangement. Here are two people diametrically opposed to each other. Miss Critchlow, an attractive, mentally alert undergraduate, is ready to throw tradition overboard. She is frank almost to the point of flamboyance in her assertion that the modern girl does not wait any longer for marriage. Sex to her is not just a word. It is a very real and important part of life-TrSomething that one actually feels. It is a subject which should be discussed freely and not relegated to the limbo of ancient taboos. Professor Hammill, on the other hand, is just a nice young college professor who has placed woman on a pedestal**,Virtue is to him very
Hi S’y!
DAILY HEALTH SERVICE
well-being that may cause the worker to put on more effort, but that merely is whipping up a tired horse. The same is true of coffee, which contains the drug caffein that has the power to speed up the brain. During the World war, reports were circulated regarding the promotion of muscular activity and the prevention of fatigue in both man and animals through the giving of sodium phosphate. Patent medicines based on this substance have appeared both in Germany and in this country. The investigations made by the United States public health service showed that the only beneficial effect was the feeling of well-being that resulted from stimulation of the intestinal tract and the elimination of body wastes., The endurance of a man is governed by two things: The greater the income of oxygen during exercise, the longer a man can go on,
real and sacred. Asa matter of fact, he just has been awarded first prize for a book on that very subject. And Miss Critchlow’s thesis—“ Sex Life of the Modern Woman” —seems to him a shocking expose of bad taste. He accuses her of being entirely ignorant of her subject; while she, on the other hand, accuses him of being afraid of women. While the story degenerates badly in the second act, the young woman does succeed in convincing her professor that he was all wrong in his conception of the feminine race as a whole. Here were all sorts of opportunities for amusing and enlightening situations. But either the authors lost track of their premise altogether or they lacked courage to
People’s Voice
Editor Times—Why not every one put his shoulder to the wheel, and help our police chief make this city a clean place to live? Our chief is extending every effort to clean up the rottenness and it is the duty of every citizen to back him to the limit. We are not doing very much when. we back only those laws which we like. We must help to uphold every law on the books. The dry law is on our books, and contrary to the opinions of some great minds, it can be enforced to the extent that every “joint” in Indianapolis that sells liquor can be closed, but it never can be done so long as the good citizens will not come out in the open, and back up a man like our present chief. Let us all give this thing a good honest try once. Let us back our chief to the limit, and not be yellow enough to admit that Indianapolis can not enforce its own laws. If there are laws we don’t like, that does not imply that we don’t have to obey them. And last, but by no means least, it is the duty of the press to back up every officer who is doing his best to enforce the law. P. B. FAIR. Editor Times—l notice your arj tide on driving cripples off the J streets of our city. I have' had a hand in the affairs of our city for several years and this is the first j time I ever have voiced a protest. 11 object to driving those people off the streets. “Giving does not impoverish us, neither does withholding enrich us,” says the greatest personage the world has known outside of the Master himself. If there £re those among us who are using boys or children for gain, that kind of begging should be stopped, but to those who are unable to work at a gainful occupation and would rather beg than go ■ to some of the institutions of our state, which are far from right themselves, then it is their privilege to do so, and they should be let alone. I have no patience with inhumanity in any one. I feel that our police chief can see different in this matter, or any one else who might have influenced him in doing this. Let the people give. That is a privilege and a joy to any one who has the money to give. THOMAS W. HENDRICKS SR.
and the more severe exercise he can undertake. The greater the oxygen debt he can carry, the longer will he be able to keep up a certain effort. A man who can take in four quarts of oxygen a minute when breathing air can take in six quarts of oxygen when he breathes a mixture that is one-half oxygen. Hill asserts that a man who could run a mile in 4 minutes and 15 seconds breathing air could do it under 4 minutes breathing oxygen. This assertion is figured mathematically from a knowledge of the average capacity of human lungs and from the ability of a normal heart to circulate blood purified with oxygen. The figures never have been verified by actual experiment, because the necessary oxygen would cost SSOO and a special -tunnel to contain it would have to be built for the runner.
DV HEYWOOD BROUN
carry on. And in order to drag their play out to its conventional close they introduced two gunmen, a murder and a series of banal situations. Too bad! It started out to be a swell play. tt it tt Cheese It, the Cops! MAE WEST, that perennial thorn in Mr. Sumner’s side, has done it again. I haven’t seen “The Constant Sinner,” her latest saga of the underworld. But my scouts tell me it’s pretty bad. That is, she has left nothing whatever # to the imagination. I am not a sincere lover of bawdiness. But there is something about Mae West —a certain indefinable quality—which fascinates me. Her ribald wisecracks do not offend me as they would if mouthed by any one else. One can not help liking her and sympathizing with her, the while deploring her complete lack of moral sense. Os course, I am speaking now of the actress, not the woman. Very likely, off stage she is more like the campfire girl she professes to be in her curtain speech than the scheming adventuress she depicts in three acts and sixteen scenes. I think it might be a good idea for Miss West to stick to acting and leave the writing of her plays to more expert hands. I should like to see her in a really good play. I don’t mean to suggest that she do Ophelia or even a society drama. She is essentially fitted for the role she has assumed. But even a play about a lady of the evening can be subtle and less flagrantly shocking. And I’m sure Mae West could immortalize such a character. Almost, I think, she could be another Du Barry. (Copyright. 1931. bv The Times)
$ 8.50 The new fail price for Gentlemen's Oxfords from J. P. Smith. Styled with understanding—built by experienced hands. A great "pairing up" TAN AND of service and value—black at $8.50. L. Strauss & Cos. DR. STOCKTON, REGISTERED PODIATRIST-FIRST FLOOR, SOUTH
Ideals and opinions expressed in this column are those of one of America's most interesting writers and are presented without regard to their agreement or disagreement with the editorial attitude of this naner.—The Editor.
_SEPT. 21, 1931
SCIENCE BY DAVID DIETZ
Although' Infantile Paralysis Is an Old Disease No One Yet Has Seen the Microbe Which Causes It.
OUTBREAKS of infantile paralysis. or poliomyelitis, to use the medical name, have been more severe in North America than anywhere else in the world. This is the opinion recently expressed by Dr. Simon Flexner, director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York. The attention of the world again is centered on the subject of this dread disease because of the outbreak which occurred in New York during the past summer. The disease first was known in Norway and Sweden. I#i the last twenty-four years; according to Dr. Flexner, it has made its progress around the world, breaking out in epidemics in various localities. "Only the tropics, and even they not wholly, have been spared its ravages,” he says. "It is probably just because infantile paralysis never before had prevailed in a world-wide epidemic that we are witnessing the periodical outbreaks which are so tragic in their consequences,” he says. tt tt tt Microbes Invisible ALTHOUGH infantile paralysis is an old disease, it was not until forty years ago that it was established that it was an infectious and communicable disease. That fact was discovered during an epidemic in Stockholm. But no one yet has seen the microbe which causes the disease. "The microbe or micro-organism which induces infantile paralysis is so minute that it is not Certain that it ever has been seen under the microscope,” Dr. Flexner says. "Because of its minuteness, it can pass through filters of earthenware which hold back, and even prevent from passing, ordinary micro-organ-isms, such as the bacteria. “The microbe of infantile paralysis differs in another way from the usual bacteria. While bacteria are easily made to grow outside the body, the microbe can be made to multiply in this way only under special conditions. These conditions ar e provided by growing and multiplying tissue cells taken from warm-blooded animals and propagated in tissue cultures. "When the invisible microbe of infantile paralysis is cultivated with tissue cells, both increase together, the microbe probably within tha cells. "There are many other kinds of invisible microbes which produce diseases of plants and the lower and higher animals. All these ultramicroscopic disease-producing microbes share the peculiarity that in order to be made to multiply outside the animal or plant which they attack as parasites, they must be cultivated with living and growing’ tissue cells, tt a tt Nose, Throat Channels IT was during an epidemic of infantile paralysis in Stockholm in 1905 that it was established that the disease was passed from person to person. But just how the passage took place was not determined at the time. , It was the discovery four years later by Dr. Landsteiner that the disease could be communicated to monkeys that opened up a method for the study of the disease. "The first step forward,” says Dr. Flexner, “consisted in the discovery at the Rockefeller institute that the microbe of infantile paralysis escapes from the body in the secretions of the nose and throat. “It is not as widely appreciated as it should be that a way for the dis-ease-producing microbe to escape alive and undamaged from the body is just as essential for the spread of the disease as a way of effectively entering a healthy individual in whom the disease is produced. “Hence the detection of the manner and place of exit of the microbe may afford the clew as to its means of entrance. And this is actually what happened in the instance of poliomyelitis. "Finding that the microbe escapes by way of the nose and throat led almost immediately to the discovery that it also was able to enter the healthy monkey and induce paralysis through these organs. "At the present time it is the firm belief of most pathologists that ths microbe of infantile paralysis is carried from person to person, from the infected to the uninfected, through the secretions of the nose and throat. The public health measures designed to reduce the spread of the disease are based on this belief.”
Daily Thought
The words of a wise man’s mouth are gracious, but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself. —Ecclesiastes 10: 12. He that never thinks can never be wise.—Johnson.
