Medicine: Paralysis Serum for All

Two Manhattan scientists announced last week that they had developed a horse serum useful against infantile paralysis. Heretofore the best treatment for the disease has been "convalescent serum" taken from a person who has recently recovered from infantile paralysis. Convalescent serum has been scarce and difficult to get. Drs. Marcus Neustaedter, neurologist, and E. J. Banzhaff, serologist, have hit upon a procedure of producing the proper serum in a horse, the handy and prolific source of diphtheria antitoxin. This serum immunizes monkeys against the disease. It has even cured them when given quickly after they were infected. In the U. S. and Europe some five dozen children, some of them in the early paralytic stages, have received treatment. All recovered. Their recoveries warranted last week's report: Infantile paralysis serum is now available in quantity.