The Key West Citizen

POLIO LINKED TO HIGH LIVING

Despite the belief that the end of Summer brought about the end of the polio menace in several sections of the country the polio battle continued through October.

In the West Florida State Capital of Tallahassee, the battle against polio was raging in October at a faster pace than during most summer months of former years.

In spite of the fact that shots were given children, the type of disease experienced in Tallahassee attacked mostly adults, particularly middle-aged women. It was not unusual for the small city of Tallahassee to experience a dozen or more new cases of polio each day.

One of the interesting things about polio is that the disease seems to attack those in higher income brackets and those who live on a higher level. Its incidence, in other words, rises with the standard of living.

Another interesting thing is that polio seems to thrive where other diseases do not make much headway. Where infant mortality is highest, polio is lowest, and vice versa.

In primitive countries, with populations of low social economic level, antibodies against polio appear at an earlier age than they do in people living in advanced countries, with populations of high social and economic levels.

This was the conclusion of Dr. Thomas M. Rivers, director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York, speaking recently before a health meeting.

These facts show that polio is a greater threat to the people of the United States than to any other. and thus the all-out effort of this country's doctors and scientists to lick infantile paralysis is not a misdirected one, since it is a disease which experiences more success with Americans than any other people.