Armstrong – Table of Contents

Additional attempts occurred utilizing sprays to prevent poliomyelitis. With
additional funding from the President’s Birthday Ball Commission, Dr. Edwin Schultz
(16) was able to test other solutions in monkeys. He found that he could protect animals
with zinc sulfate solution. One or two applications appeared to be effective for longer
periods than the alum-picric acid and did not require repetition. Test spraying in adult
college graduate students indicated that this solution, in contrast to the alum-picric acid,
was very irritating and not well tolerated in the nose. Children were especially difficult
recipients, and Armstrong never knew when he personally administered the alum-picric
acid whether he was achieving spraying the nasal vault because the children wiggled so
much. He quipped facetiously that the only thing that would control the children during a
nasal spraying was to encase them in total plaster body casts.
In 1937, the spray idea (17) received an extended test in Toronto, Canada where
the local medical society enlisted the aid of the regional ear, nose and throat specialists to
devise a method to successfully fill both the nasal cavity and vault with zinc sulfate
solution. These doctors suggested that the proper method was to put the child on its back
and lowering the head so that the nostrils faced straight upward. This was not a method
for spraying large numbers of persons in an epidemic situation, and the proposed logistics
to do a proper controlled trial were impractical. The spray was not without its dangers.
Some people lost their sense of smell. As quoted by Rivers (17), Dr. Donald Fraser of the
Connaught Laboratories never regained his sense of smell, and “that the only objection he
had to this loss was that he couldn’t enjoy his sherry any more.” Much to the chagrin and
frustration of Paul DeKruif, who had enthusiastically promoted the spraying program,
none of the public health community, who would be involved, could come up with a plan