An outbreak of poliomyelitis occurred last year in the town of Perrysburg, Ohio. Although the total number of cases was comparatively small, the epidemic would probably have been one of the greatest in history had it developed in the same relative proportions in a larger community. Several patients who became ill lived near a creek at the eastern border of the town (point 2 on the map, fig. 1). The local chief of police stated that children of his relatives and friends had been wading in the creek at a place marked point3 on the accompanying map and that several of them had had gastrointestinal upsets which preceded the epidemic. The creek, which traveled over a loam bottom studded with rocks, received drainage water from farms.
The experiments reported in this communication were performed in order to determine whether the water in the creek was infected with the virus