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Infantile Paralysis
Excerpt from the book The Science of Eating, 1919, pp. 309-311.
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In June, 1916, an epidemic of infantile paralysis broke out in Brooklyn, N. Y.
The disease spread so rapidly that after 187 deaths had been reported in New York City and hundreds of cases discovered in eleven states and Canada, Health Commissioner Haven Emerson announced that he would appeal to the National Red Cross for help.
Three thousand three hundred physicians and nurses were put to work in New York and Brooklyn, and the Health Department informed the public that the United States Public Health Service and the Rockefeller Institute would begin active work at once to assist in stamping out the scourge.
Fifty-five street playgrounds were ordered closed. Every children’s reading room in Manhattan and Brooklyn was closed. Sunday schools were closed. Summer camps were broken up. Children not only could not cross the state line but they were not permitted by the police to pass from town to town.
Dr. Lewis C. Ager called for public subscriptions to buy braces and other supporting devices for victims of the disease.
Then came this remarkable statement, July 9th, 1916, from Professor Simon Baruch, who diagnosed the first recorded case of perforating appendicitis successfully operated on, and who is one of the foremost members of the American medical profession:
“For several months I have watched the scientific development of the malign influence of defective or absent vitamines in certain foods, as published in the weekly reports of the United States Public Health Service, together with articles in the medical journals on beri-beri and pellagra.
“Pigeons fed on polished rice are affected by paralysis, technically called polyneuritis, which begins with loss of weight and ends fatally. Dr. Sidell found that pigeons fed on this exclusive diet did not become paralysed (within the two months of experiment at least) if they were given also some otherwise useless yeast products (rich in mineral salts) from the brewery vats which are usually wasted. He has also shown that if this waste material be given to a pigeon already paralysed it will recover within an hour and to all appearances it will be normal in twelve hours.
“There is a striking similarity in some of the causes predisposing to infantile paralysis and beri-beri. Both occur chiefly in overcrowded localities, in hot weather, and more among males than females. Both are accompanied by fever and paralysis, and both are extremely fatal. Both have prevailed as epidemics, and their fatality has caused terror and despair.
“Beri-beri was formerly regarded as an infectious disease from undiscoverable sources, but is now known to be due chiefly if not solely to absence of vitamines in the diet.
“May not infantile paralysis, which has eluded thus far the most searching investigations, be likewise traceable to some defect in diet that may be discovered?
“We have a clue to the possibilities in this direction in the report of the United States Public Health Service of April 17th, 1916, on bread as food, in which the fact is clearly brought out that the fine roller-milled wheat flour is devoid of vitamines, and that owing to the use of baking powders containing bicarbonate of soda the vitamines in other foods are likely to be destroyed.
“In a study of pellagra in South Carolina, Voeghtlin regards this malady as somewhat related to beri-beri. He found that this disease prevailed in the factory districts, where people eat mostly fat bacon, cereals and soda raised biscuits or corn bread made of highly milled corn, while in the backwoods, where coarsely milled grain is used, pellagra is rare.
“The high cost of vitamine-containing foods, like eggs, milk and meats, makes it impossible for these poor people to protect themselves against the loss of vitamines in purchased cereal foods.
“It may be of interest to ascertain if infantile paralysis has been more prevalent since 1878, when the new milling processes were invented. I omitted to mention as proof of similarity of causes that the experiments made on pigeons have been confirmed in chicken, which fed on whole corn remain healthy, while the same fowls fed on highly milled cornmeal are affected with paralysis.
“These briefly stated scientific facts lead me to believe that close scrutiny of the food of the children afflicted may lead to the discovery of a dietetic cause of infantile paralysis.”
Perhaps it will be found that the diet of the mother before the birth of the infant predisposed it to infantile paralysis.
Comment by Royal Lee:
Dr. Baruch would have been interested to learn that the first reported case of polio (infantile paralysis) appeared in Vienna within a year after the introduction of the world’s FIRST ROLLER MILL MAKING WHITE FLOUR. And this was long before bleach poisons were used to destroy what little nutrition was left in the refined product.