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This communication concerns itself chiefly with clinical and pathologic observations in poliomyelitis and the probable deductions which may be made therefrom. In later articles I shall describe the methods of treatment and report the results for patients cared for in the Division of Contagious Diseases, City Hospital, Cleveland, during the epidemics of 1941 and 1942. These will be compared with the results of McCarroll, Cole and Knapp, Stimson and associates, the Kendalls, Stone and others. In a final review, I shall try to analyze the recent literature on poliomyelitis.
PORTAL OF ENTRY
The available evidence suggests that the virus has its portal of entry anywhere along the gastrointestinal tract from the upper portion of the stomodeum down through the lower reaches of the intestine, usually from the midgut. During a mild epidemic, the patients with paresis or paralysis usually have involvement of the legs or arms, probably a spread from