Armstrong – Table of Contents

peculiar motor, vegetative and psychic symptoms. Motor symptoms resembled those of
Parkinsonism. Excessive salivation, tears and oily skin were often present. Mental
impairment was prominent. Some patients exhibited a strange psychomotor phenomenon
called an “oculogyric crisis.” This was an attack of involuntary deviation and fixation of
the eyeballs, usually upwards. The crisis might last for several minutes or hours. Many
patients required prolonged custodial care. During the author’s clinical years in medical
school in the 1940s, the class had field trips to various chronic care hospitals where the
faculty presented patients with this disease as examples manifesting signs and symptoms
of Parkinson’s disease. Despite many attempts, investigators were unable to identify or
isolate infectious agents from the tissues of these patients; the etiology remains unknown.
Current medical texts have largely ceased including clinical descriptions of this disease.
Several other illnesses characterized by “brain fever” had also produced consternation in
the past in the general population. In 1909 Landsteiner and Popper (4) demonstrated that
poliomyelitis virus could be transmitted to monkeys. However the appearance of
widespread epidemics and the random individualized attacks of paralytic disease in the
early 20th century immobilized entire communities during the late summer and early fall
months. Knowledge was lacking about the reservoirs, mode of spread, and effective
public health measures to prevent or limit outbreaks. Help, fortunately, appeared when
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, himself a paralytic victim of poliomyelitis, through
enthusiastic encouragement, mobilized private, governmental, and financial resources to
promote intensive research activities leading to the unraveling of the mysteries of
poliomyelitis resulting in the development of effective vaccines. Another major fear
among the general population was the random appearance of central nervous system