POLIOMYELITIS IN PREGNANCY

Acute poliomyelitis occurs in all trimesters of pregnancy. At one time there were six women in the poliomyelitis ward at Children''s Hospital, five of whom were either pregnant or recently delivered. Poliomyelitis is an important entity in the differential diagnosis of diseases complicating pregnancy. Once diagnosed, treatment is directed primarily toward the symptoms of poliomyelitis, secondarily toward pregnancy. Effort should be made to maintain adequately high oxygen tension in the maternal blood stream to protect the fetus. The prognosis of the disease when it occurs during pregnancy may be less predictable, but it is generally good for both mother and infant. Although the incidence of abortion is relatively high, if the pregnancy goes to term parturition is expected to be normal. The number of cases reported is not sufficient to establish the significance of the suspected selective occurrence of poliomyelitis in pregnancy.     

STUDIES IN PLANT NUTRITION

The addition of an aqueous extract of leaf mould to lettuce and radish plants, grown in sand with inorganic culture solutions, caused significant increases in fresh and dry weights. An aqueous solution of a yeast extract caused significant, though smaller, increases in fresh and dry weights of radish plants. An aqueous extract of 'bacterized' peat had no significant effect on the growth of radish and was toxic to lettuce. The organic supplements had no significant effect on oats grown under similar conditions.
Neither the beneficial nor the toxic effects of the organic supplements can be satisfactorily explained on their content of auxins active in the Avena test.