Armstrong – Table of Contents

exit of the virus. 3) Purification and concentration of the virus. 4) What is to be called
poliomyelitis? 5) Mode of transmission of virus from man to man? 6) Transmission of
virus along nerves. 7) Further attempts to establish poliomyelitis in small laboratory
animals. 8) Settlement of the question of chemical blockade. 9) Chemotherapy of
poliomyelitis. 10) Relationship of constitution to susceptibility. 11) Production of a good
vaccine.
Armstrong served on the Committee for several decades, participating actively in its
deliberations and remaining involved in the discussions relating to the grants awarded the
major investigators who made important contributions in elucidating answers relating to
the questions raised by the eleven-point program. His role was central in a Committee
whose foresight and acumen helped to alleviate the human affliction of poliomyelitis. Of
maximum importance was his addressing point-seven in the eleven-point program – the
establishment of poliomyelitis in small laboratory animals.
Through the kindness of Dr. Max Peet, a neurosurgeon of the Department of
Surgery, University of Michigan, Armstrong received on August 28, 1937, a portion of
the brain and spinal cord from an 18-year old boy, one of several victims who succumbed
to bulbar poliomyelitis in Lansing, Michigan, during that summer (22). Dr. Peet and
Armstrong became acquainted with each other when, as noted previously, they both
served on activities of the Scientific Committee of the President’s Birthday Ball
Commission. In the initial report, Armstrong indicated that he recovered in rodents a
virus that had been through 15 monkey passages. This agent, by clinical characteristics
and pathologic examination, was identified as poliomyelitis (23).