UNSUNG

The battle against the microscopic forces of disease is one that never ceases. But the returns from the front appear so rarely in newspaper headlines that the winning of skirmishes for humanity often goes unrecognized. The notable sally made by the Harvard Infantile Paralysis Commission during the past few weeks escaped notice until a minor epidemic alarmed those of the public who still remember ravages caused by the disease in 1916.

The accomplishments of the Commission, acting in co-operation with the health departments of Massachusetts and Vermont, are two. A serum has been prepared from the spinal fluids of infected patients and made available to the local physicians. The serum is not an infallible cure, but it has been found ordinarily to be a remedy if administered during the three days interval between ingestion and actual paralysis. Second, Dr. Lloyd W. Aycock, head of the Commission, and a veteran warrior against the disease, has had explained through the press the very slight differences during the three day period between a heavy fever and infantile paralysis, as well as simple precautions against infection.

It is certain that there are more unknown infantrymen with their feet on the laboratory firesteps of medical science than in any other field of endeavor in the world. Not only an outbreak approaches an epidemic does the public wonder how many nascent Black Plagues have been stamped out in a test tube.