Practical and theoretical considerations with regard to vaccination in poliomyelitis.

Abstract

Artificial immunization against poliomyelitis has been the target toward which research workers have been aiming for well over 40 years. During this period a number of attempts at active immunization in man have been tried in this country, notably in 1935, when several thousand children were inoculated with suspensions of infected monkey cord in which the virus of poliomyelitis had been inactivated by formalin or other chemicals. These tests were made during the poliomyelitis season, at a time when there was limited appreciation of the fact that there was more than one immunological type of poliomyelitis virus, and when methods for measuring the poliomyelitis antibody content of serum were crude and very expensive. For this and other reasons it is not surprising that this early trial was unsatisfactory, although several thousand children had been inoculated before the unsatisfactory features came to light. 1 The 1935 experiments were quickly terminated when