Epidemiology and control of poliomyelitis

Abstract

Poliomyelitis has probably taken its toll of life and left its scars through man's history, for the stigmata of the disease are found in Ancient Egyptian mummies and are depicted in the painting of Hieronymous Bosch and Bruegel. It was a disease of childhood and was described first by Underwood in 1784. The first clinical record of the disease in England is a series of four cases among young children in Worksop, Nottinghamshire described by Badham in 1834 and in the same year an outbreak was recorded in St. Helena. Until 1911-13, when the first widespread epidemics occurred in Great Britain, scattered cases and small groups only were reported, and Creighton (1894) gives it no mention in his exhaustive survey of epidemic diseases.In recent years in Britain, as in some other parts of the world, the disease has undergone a change in pattern and the popular name of "Infantile Paralysis" is no longer comprehensive.In 1908 a causal virus was demonstrated by transmission of the disease to monkeys and by neutralisation tests three distinct immunological types can be recognised, type I being responsible for 80% of cases, type II is associated with endemic infection usually and type III is occasionally incriminated in epidemics.