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This volume describes an epidemic of infantile paralysis which occurred in Cologne during 1938. It covers etiology, epidemiology, pathologic anatomy, constitutional heredity and predisposing factors; it gives statistics on preparalytic, abortive and paralytic types of the disease and outlines the orthopedic methods of treatment and prophylaxis. Each subject was considered by a specialist in that field. There were 476 cases, in 38 (7.9 per cent) of which the patients died. The patients in 249 cases were cured with but little residual paresis; 131 patients were improved, and 58 were completely cured. In general, the observations were similar to those known to most American physicians. A few conclusions were interesting. The authors feel that more stress should be placed on blood groupings, believing as they do that persons with blood of some groups have a constitutional predisposition to the disease.
The authors subscribed to the general view that the virus enters