Polio

18th Dynasty, Egypt
(ca 1400 BC)

This Egyptian mural from around 1400 BC depicts the poor doorkeeper Ruma bringing an offering to the goddess Ishtar to heal him of his lameness.

♦ Painted stele of the doorkeeper Ruma ♦

♦ Diagnosis:
Main symptoms: wasted muscles, shortened right leg, contracted Achilles tendon
Secondary symptoms: young man, uses a long cane
Clinical diagnosis: acute anterior poliomyelitis

♦ Definition: acute anterior poliomyelitis
A viral inflammation of the anterior nodules of the gray matter of the spinal cord.
It occurs mainly in children, where it leads to paralysis of certain muscle groups or of an entire limb.
The disease strikes suddenly with fever, digestive problems, and pain in the affected muscles. Paralysis is usually most pronounced at the onset, often followed by a slight improvement. The affected muscles quickly waste away, their reflexes disappear, and a degenerative reaction develops. Muscle contractions can cause new deformities to develop later in life. The disease is endemic with epidemic outbreaks.
Some cases show no paralysis. In those cases, the diagnosis can only be made by examining the spinal fluid.

♦ Discussion:
Mandatory vaccination against poliomyelitis has virtually eradicated the disease since 1960 in the countries that participated in the program.
The World Health Organization (WHO) hopes to soon be able to prevent all new cases of polio.

Source: Jan Dequeker

♦ Poliomyelitis,
Also known as infantile paralysis or polio for short, is a viral disease.
(Greek: polio = gray, myelitis = inflammation of the spinal cord).
It is an inflammation of the gray matter in the spinal cord.
This disease is caused by the poliovirus, which is an enterovirus belonging to the picornaviridae (pico-RNA-viridae: small RNA viruses).
The virus is excreted in the feces of infected individuals.

Poor hygiene can cause the virus to be transmitted from one person to another. The incubation period is usually 6-20 days, but it can also be longer or shorter.

Nowadays, polio usually progresses without serious symptoms; approximately 95% of ‘patients’ notice little or nothing of the disease. However, these people do spread the polio virus. Approximately 5% experience vague general symptoms such as a sore throat or stomach ache.
Less than 1% of infected individuals experience muscle paralysis. This is mainly caused by poliovirus type 1.

There is no official treatment for polio.

Paintings

Fight Between Carnival and Lent, Pieter Bruegel in 1559
two crippled figures appear; although this artistic testimony is not formal proof of poliomyelitis, it strongly suggests that both suffered from the disease.

Studies of Beggars and Vagrants, Hieronymus Bosch or Pieter Bruegel the Elder
also captures the cruel effects of the disease.

Sad Legacy, Joaquín Sorolla 1899
represented a group of children probably with sequels of poliomyelitis bathing at Valencia’s beach.

Christina’s World, Andrew Wyeth’s, 20th-century American art
where the woman who suffered from polio is saw making her slow crawl across the yard.

Jan Dequeker
The artist and the doctor look at paintings

The Description of the Sequels os Poliomyelitis in Art
Medicine and Art
Bumbulut Calin

Photos
wikimedia.org
wikipedia.commons