Medicine: Polio Flying Squads

Now keep the ash can covered, never drink out of a stream;

Take care that all the food you eat and kitchenware is clean.

Kill the rats and kill the mice and make the roaches go,

For that’s the way to really whip that mean old polio.

In San Antonio last week “Red River Dave” McEnery (TIME, March 18) was yodeling The Polio Song daily over station WOAI. San Antonio, with 30 cases, had a bad case of polio jitters. Nationally, the incidence of infantile paralysis, 813 cases, was up almost 17% over last year. But the only state in which the disease had reached epidemic proportions (one case per 1,000 population) was Florida, where 126 were afflicted, and six had died.

To Miami by plane the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis packed off a special “polio team” headed by Dr. David Steven Grice of Harvard. With him were a Yale epidemiologist, Dr. Dorothy M. Horstmann, an orthopedic nurse and four physiotherapists. Three other “flying squads” of polio experts have been recruited at Northwestern, Stanford and the D. T. Watson School of Physiotherapy, to speed to the scene of any outbreak on two hours’ notice.

At Miami, Dr. Grice, stripped to his white sleeveless jumper, was soon supervising in wards and teaching procedure in lecture halls. His team would stay five or six weeks, the physiotherapists longer if necessary. Treatment for the disease, whose mysteries remain largely unsolved: Sister Kenny’s hot packs to relieve pain and muscle training to restore function; occasional non-specified drugs, plenty of rest.

Bigger & Better. Although Texas had not yet called for a polio team, the largest state was not to be denied the largest whoop & holler. The sale of DDT was up 600%; old cotton-duster planes were spraying creek beds (although medical authorities question the effectiveness of such measures) ; a health official said that 20,000 outhouses were destined for a purge. A mother wrote health officials wanting to know if it “was safe to mail a letter out of San Antonio.” High-school graduation ceremonies were being held by radio, to avoid assemblies. The publicity would not harm a forthcoming $4,000,000 sewer bond issue in San Antonio.