Archive Report
Archive Report
Non-Infectious Illness in United States
Mass Inoculation of children with the new Salk vaccine—once the difficulties met at the outset have been resolved—promises to add poliomyelitis to the long list of dread diseases that have yielded to discoveries of medical research. Like smallpox, diphtheria, typhoid and other once-prevalent afflictions now virtually eradicated in the United States, polio is an infectious disease caused by an invasion of the body by a virulent organism. Such diseases have been overcome to a large extent by the development of serums or vaccines which, when introduced into the human system, stimulate the production of antibodies that stand ready to destroy an invader and prevent illness.
The victories over infectious diseases have been accompanied by a marked rise in the incidence of ...