Standish High School - Crimson Rambler Yearbook (Standish, ME)

Page 29 text:

Certain groups of muscles are partially or completely paralyzed from within ZA to 72 hours. These paralyses of muscle groups are usually very unequally distributed and a whole muscle group or only part of one may be paralyzed. The involuntary structures are also involved at times, causing various trophic or vegetative disturbances. The nature of the changes in the spinal cbrd' are those of an acute inflammation, in which the blood supply to the cord may be cut off or the inflammation may cause swelling and pressure upon the nerve structures. This causes a partial or complete destruction of the nerve structures of the spinal cord. ' Modern study has shown the involvement of the nervous system, but it also shows that the disease may be in other than purely nervous structures. In certain patients the chief destruction is in the mid-brain tissues, from these, result paralyses of the cranial nerves, particularly of the eye-ball muscles and the muscles of the face. As a rule its worst effects are present within the first week of illness. The recovery of this disease is a long and tedious affair and may take as long as years. Recovery is y very slow, but there is a gradual improvement if the proper kind of treatment is pursued. Special quarantine measures are desirable for suspects of those sick from the disease. In the acute stages of the disease it is not known what may be beneficial. Lumber puncture helps some, ergot helps others. The best remedy is a serun obtained from the blood of persons who have had the disease and recovered. The recent development of a much stronger serum from the blood of a horse, which is still under experimentation, is expected to give a more effective remedy. Great care should be given to conscious muscle training. Electricity, massage, and other similar types of therapy are usually unavailing. The muscles must be made to perform by the conscious wish to perform movements. Swimming pools are very useful in the treatment of paralyzed muse es. Thus the search for knowledge in order to combat this dread disease is discovering new helos. As time goes on it is to be hoped that Infantile Paralysis will be less dangerous and its results less permanent. Nola Skillings '50

Page 28 text:

The only generally successful cure for cancer is its re- moval, as early as possible, by surgical means. The use of the knife is preferred to caustics or cautery because it permits of a cleaner cut and more possibility for deep inter- nal cancer involving the stomach or intestines, but, occasion- ally, cancers of the skin are treated by caustic with fair results. It is, however, better to have the cancer cut out clean, as the scar is then much less marked and the healing is more rapid. A certain number of cancers of the face, and especially small early cancers on other sites can occasionally be cured by either radium or x-ray, but, as yet, we have no published statistics to show what proportion of cases can be permanently cured by either of these agents, the number of cures, reported after some forty years of use of both these, is exceedingly small, and the results are not nearly so good as those which follow surgical removal of the entire tumor. It must be remembered that cancer is not a blood disease and that when it begins it is no larger than a pin-point, so that if we could make a diagnosis and cut it out in time, every cancer would be curable. The dificulty is to make a diag- nosis and as the symptoms absent, it is impossible for a physician to learn of the beginning of the disease in time to cut it all out. With every improvement in diagnosis of cancer the possibility of curing the disease has increased. E. Irish 150 POLIOMYELITIS Poliomyelitis is also known as Infantile Paralysis, or Heine Medins Disease, It is an acute infectionous disease, chiefly involving the spinal cord and its membranes, and some- times it advances into the upper parts of the mid-brain and the brain itself. It has not been definitely decided which is the agent of this disease and it has not been isolated yet. It has been communicated to lower animals lchiefly monkeysJ and has been transmitted through several generations. It is thought to be a filterable virus of some kind, which is in some ways like the virus of the disease known as hydrophobia. The mode of entering the body is not definitely known, but the naso-phatynx is supposed to carry it. It is a comm- unicable disease and occurs in epidemic form, such as measles, chickenpox, whooping cough, etc. It.is found chiefly in the temperate zones and the epidemics occur chiefly in the autumn and summer but epidemics in the fall and winter are not un- known. It affects children. The attack often begins with mild respiratory or gastroin testinal disturbances. There are signs of neuralgia and one may have neuralgic pains and headaches. There also may be an increasing irritability to light, sounds, and touch.

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