Epidemic & Hysteria

The North Carolina-Virginia epidemic of infantile paralysis last week threatened to stir up an epidemic of hysteria. Dr. Martha Edith MacBride-Dexter, Pennsylvania's Secretary of Health, persuaded Governor Earle to persuade Secretary of War Dern to forbid the mobilization of Virginia and District of Columbia National Guardsmen for summer maneuvers in Pennsylvania. Virginia and District of Columbia troops therefore played war in their own backyards.

Surgeon General Hugh Smith Cumming of the U. S. Public Health Service braced himself against hysteria, cried: "In more than one area this year physicians have been reporting as infantile paralysis questionable and mild cases of infection in order to be on the safe side. Thus the figures as reported are not comparable with those of other years in such places. There is also a moderate increase in the number of true cases reported in several areas without any threat of a real epidemic or any direct connection with the Southern epidemic."

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