“ The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and other Agencies will help polio patients as much as possible. But the best kind of help is that which you, yourself, can give by taking every precaution to keep the disease from striking anyone in your family. Proper rest, a balanced diet, and moderate exercise in the fresh air and sunshine tone up the body and help increase the system’s resistance to disease. By following these and other common-sense rules of wholesome living, your family will be taking a major step toward health and happiness. ”

“ If any sign or symptom of polio is present, the affected person should be hospitalized immediately. Hospitals have many special forms of equipment which are necessary in treatment. Trained nursing care is essential. Should paralysis appear, special measures are necessary to prevent or lessen deformity and to begin the rebuilding of the affected parts of the body. No clearly reliable specific drug is available as yet which will cure polio, but gamma globulin appears to give some degree of protection for several weeks against the paralysis stage of the disease. ”

“ At the present time treatment of the disease takes many forms. While a patient is recovering from a polio attack, a full nourishing [Pg 5] diet, application of various forms of heat and massage, special baths and exercises, are the measures which are most helpful in restoring usefulness to affected arms or legs. Specially built shoes or braces are required in only a few cases, and surgical operations have been devised to return motion and function to the arms or legs of some patients. ”