Armstrong – Table of Contents

About the beginning of the 20th century, epidemics of poliomyelitis began
occurring with increasing frequency, almost on an annual basis, in Europe and North
America in scattered areas with increasing intensity, morbidity and public apprehension.
This new scourge was paradoxical inasmuch as other pestilential diseases and those
associated with poor sanitation were diminishing gradually, but poliomyelitis was not
disappearing following the improvement in public health standards and the initial
introduction of immunizing vaccines for childhood illnesses. Polio remained a complete
mystery to the private and public health practitioners, as well as a source of fear for the
general population because of ignorance of how it was spread and of what measures
could control an outbreak.
The era of the laboratory study of poliomyelitis began in 1909 when Dr. Karl
Landsteiner, in Vienna, Austria, passed infection from the spinal cord tissue of a polio
fatality to several non-human primates, monkeys (Macacus rhesus) and baboons. He also
postulated that the infectious agent was a virus. He did not work further with
poliomyelitis. He moved later to the Rockefeller Institute in New York City where he did
his pioneering work on blood groups and immunology. Thereafter, Dr. Simon Flexner,
Director of the Rockefeller Institute, and other Institute investigators dominated polio
research for the next several decades. The Institute was one of the few private
organizations with the facilities, financial resources, and personnel to conduct research
utilizing and dependant on expensive, irritable, and irascible monkeys. Flexner found that
the poliovirus passed through the finest porcelain filters that held back any
microscopically visible bacteria. In looking for a portal of entry for polio in humans,
Flexner found that he could infect and paralyze monkeys by instilling infectious polio