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Dissertation Information for Margaret L. Grimshaw

NAME:
- Margaret L. Grimshaw

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (1996)

ADVISORS:
- Robert G. Frank

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Ronald Mellor
- Eric H. Monkkonen
- Regina Morantz-Sanchez
- Ralph Frerichs

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: The poliovirus controversy in the years before World War II: Shaping America's medical science approach to human disease

Abstract: Before World War II American investigators were divided into two schools of thought as to the etiology and pathogenesis of poliomyelitis. One faction, working within the dominant microbiological approach to infection, supported the theory that poliomyelitis was caused by a neurotropic virus that entered the body through the nose, traveled up the olfactory filaments exclusively to the brain, then through the spinal cord to peripheral nervous tissue, ultimately leading to severe destruction of motor nerve cells. The challenging faction, guided by an epidemiological perspective of disease, believed that polio was caused by at least two immunologically distinct enteric viruses that invaded the human host through the alimentary tract, became manifest in a mild or "inapparent" form sufficient enough to produce lifelong immunity against further attack and only rarely caused paralysis or death. The apparent dispute focused on whether poliomyelitis was primarily a disorder of the central nervous system or generally a systemic illness. The core of the argument, however, questioned the fundamental way in which medical science determined the nature not only of poliomyelitis, but of all infectious diseases.

Scientific specialization and a reliance on the animal model for determining how disease developed in humans hampered recognition of the true picture of poliomyelitis for over a quarter of a century after its initial identification as a viral illness. A trend in the 1930s toward exploring human ailments from an interdisciplinary perspective fostered serious consideration of the host and environment as disease factors. By combining the experimental study of poliovirus under controlled laboratory conditions with observations of the infection in its natural setting, and bedside and pathological studies of afflicted individuals, investigators were able to correctly characterize poliomyelitis as an intestinal, often clinically inapparent infection caused by a family of antigenically distinct polioviruses. Understanding the exact nature of epidemic poliomyelitis paved the way for the development of an effective vaccine against the disease. The commitment on the part of a small segment of America's medical research community to approach polio from a combined clinical, epidemiological, and microbiological perspective proved to be the pivotal point in efforts to combat the disease.

MPACT Scores for Margaret L. Grimshaw

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2009-02-03 11:02:11

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Students under Margaret L. Grimshaw

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None