| OLOF EDLUND Antiquarian Bookseller STOCKHOLM |  |
| OLOF EDLUND Antiquarian Bookseller STOCKHOLM | |
| $ 250 |
| First separate edition. Offprint from Arbeiten aus dem Pathologischen Institut der Universität Helsingfors, 1:1-2. Bibliographical references in the footnotes. "Wickman was the first to produce evidence confirming the infectious nature of poliomyelitis"(G&M). "... it was in particular Ivar Wickman who in 1907 and 1911 presented the most-detailed clinical and epidemiological observations on poliomyelitis after the devastating Scandinavian epidemic in 1905, with 1,031 cases. Wickman recognized the seasonal occurrence of the disease in Sweden in the late summer and early fall, with a dramatic peak of about 370 cases in August, and emphasized the large percentage of abortive and nonparalytic cases and their relevance for the spread of the infection by direct contact from person to person. Before Wickman, the thesis of poliomyelitis infection by direct contact had been highly controversial. He tracked by meticulous investigations the spread of infections in small parishes, e.g., in Traestena with about 500 inhabitants, mostly living in isolated, widely dispersed homes. Forty-nine persons became ill, 26 of them with significant paralysis. As a common source for radial spread of the infections Wickman identified Traestena's school with diseased and, most importantly, with apparently healthy children. Sometimes family visits caused the spread of the infection. Wickman also reported that 21.4% of the victims were older than 14 years, an age distribution uncommon before epidemic poliomyelitis had emerged around 1880"(Hans J. Eggers, Milestones in Early Poliomyelitis Research (1840 to 1949), in Journal of Virology, June 1999, p. 4533-4535, Vol. 73, No. 6). |
| * G&M 4668. Waller 10287. |