Acute Poliomyelitis (Classic Reprint): With Special Reference to the Disease in Ohio, and Certain Transmission Experiments

Excerpt from Acute Poliomyelitis

By action of the State Board of Health, acute poliomyelitis was made a reportable disease in Ohio in December, 1910. Previous to this the disease had occurred sporadically, but there is no evidence to prove its existence in epidemic form until 1911. According to the report of the Bureau of the Census, 1910 (109) seventy-six deaths from poliomyelitis occurred in Ohio in 1910, and the larger cities reported the following deaths: Cleveland six, Cincinnati two. Columbus one, Toledo one, Dayton one. In 1911 one hundred and forty-two deaths occurred. They were divided among the cities as follows: Cleveland fifteen, Cincinnati forty-one, Columbus four. Toledo three, Dayton two. In various communities a few cripples have been found, evidently the victims of a previous attack of poliomyelitis, but there is little or no evidence to support the contention that the number of cases in 1911 and 1912 has been equalled in the past. The presumptive evi dence is convincing that the disease did not prevail to any extent prior to 1911. In that year Cleveland and Cincinnati, the two largest cities in Ohio, experienced what may be properly called epidemics Of acute poliomyelitis. Cincinnati suffered the most, having the largest num ber of cases, and the onset and decline of the outbreak were more rapid and the course more acute than was the case in Cleveland. For several weeks the number Of deaths from this cause outnumbered deaths from all other communicable diseases combined.