Quad-City Times from Davenport, Iowa • 41

i She Was Too Late For Circus Train couple rambles around in a picturesque palazza and surrounding gardens. North occupies much of his time binding 18th Century books for his library of treasured antiques "until my wife rotes me out to a Roman luncheon." "I try never to eat too many spaghetti," is Gloria's blushing reply to a compliment about her model-sized figure. She wears clothes well and has simple, elegant taste. Yet she is not a haut couture customer. She prefers to shop from racks in the stores.

Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ringling North are below to their apartment with their French poodle, Beauregarde. Mr a. North just recently came to the United States.

TROM HOME RmGlMG' By JEAN SPRAIN WILSON NEW YORK (AP) Sidetracked in Sarasota, winter home of the Greatest Show on Earth, is a barnred railroad car equipped with all the comforts of a most luxurious home. Yet Mrs. Henry Ringling North, visiting her husband's country for the first time, is unfortunately a few years too late to travel the summer circuit in it as members of bis famed circus family have done. The picturesque rolling home has been abandoned for the speed and convenience -'S -v yr of air transportation and hotels. Still, in a golden carpeted suite 43 floors above this city, diminutive, dark eyed Gloria and her formidable husband are very much with their circus people.

Russian Bears "Did you hear him praise the Russian circus to high heaven last night? How dare he, with the greatest circus performers in the world in his own backyard," bellows silver-haired, square-jawed North over an emcee's television show. "At least THIS man had the sense to put him in his place." He slaps at a newspaper wherein a columnist has expressed boredom over a surfeit of Russian bears on TV. Glancing at the leaden skies, North sinks into a chair. "All this rain isn't helping the gate receipts," he sighs, and is soon communicating by phone with business associates. "Gloria, Beauregarde's eyes are watering.

Maybe you'd better take him over to the circus vet this afternoon. That fellow's wonderful. Did you ever read the book he wrote about the circus?" Meanwhile Henry Ringling North's shy bride of six years moves around the amber hotel room, pouring strong coffee from an electric pot as graciously as though she were In her own living room in Rome. "I've toned the coffee down somewhat for Henry's sake," she apologizes, then submerges into a huge downy chair, giving her husband-center stage, as good Roman wives traditionally do. Ireland And Rome A brother, John Ringling North, ordinarily directs the circus activities and for years Henry has resided in Europe, except that this year the two families switched sides of the ocean temporarily.

In Ireland the Norths have bought back 500 acres of wooded, coastal land that belonged to their family 200 years ago. There they sometimes rough it in the three-bath "cottage." But home to Gloria is Rome where, even though born in England, she has spent much of her life. There the A XLJ, TIMES-DEMOCRAT Wednesday, june 3, 1964 till McConntll Steven Homan, IVi year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Steve Homan, of Miami, now visiting in Davenport, studies the sugar cube containing the Sabin vaccine.

POLIO CONQUERED KILLER 17 iO if Ut ri PTX WvJ-': jt'k' 'M I by polio in 1963 even fewer than the number of people attacked by typhoid fever. It was statistics like these that led Surgeon General Luther L. Terry to say: "I can envision the day when the occurrence of polio in the United States" will be so rare that it "will make headlines, just as did the trip of a boy with smallpox through New York en route to his home in Canada a year or so ago." For the first 16 weeks of 1964, only 19 cases of polio were reported throughout the land, including 13 paralytic ones. This compares with 123 cases annually for the period 1959-1963. Half As Many If the present rate continues, 1964 should see only half as many cases as last year, when the record low was 431.

Thus, the prospect of only 200 cases of polio in a nation of 180 million people. There were that many in single towns prior to 1955, when Dr. Salk, the quiet young virologist from the University of Pittsburgh, gave the world a vaccine made of killed viruses. In the five years immediately preceding the introduction of Salk vaccine, polio had victimized an average of 40,000 Americans yearly. But, soon after doctors began shooting the new vaccine into the arms or rumps of thousands of children and adults, the magic began to work.

1955 Drop In the first historic year of 1955 the toll dropped from 40,000 to 2,000. The next year, it was down to 15,140. By 1961 when the government approved the oral vaccine developed by white haired Dr. Sabin, of the University of Cincinnati, the toll dropped to 1,312, and the next year to 886 and finally to 431 last year. Currently, 4 million doses a month of Sabin are being distributed, against 2 million a month for Salk.

The Public Health Service says the American people have yet to take full advantage of either vaccine. Last fall, the service estimated that among, the nation's 16.5 million children under age 5 the most susceptible age group for polio at least half had not yet received the recommended course of either Salk or Sabin. Many "pockets" of unvaccinated still exist throughout the land especially in poor areas. The Public Health Service has taken no stand on which vaccine is preferable, Salk or Sabin. It says both are effective and leaves the choice to individual doctors.

The American Medical Assn. and the American Academy of Pediatrics, while giving a bow to Salk vaccine for being the pioneer and a highly effective one have come out for the Sabin product. This is polio virus. It is the first authentic picture of the killer. It is an electron micrograph of the Mahoney Strain Type No.

1, magnified 60,000 times. wmmmmmmmmmmmm Figures Show Polio Decrease In Iowa Dr. Jonas Salk is shown in the Pittsburgh Municipal Hospital after the announcement of his successful polio vaccine. He examines live virus fluid. WASHINGTON (AP) Ten years ago, polio struck down 40,000 Americans every year.

This year there will be only 200 cases in a nation of 180 million people.) Behind this medical miracle stands the genius of two men, Dr. Jonas E. Salk and Dr. Albert Sabin. Medical scientists estimate that at least 212,000 Ameri cans have been spared from death or crippling by poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis) since 1955.

That was the year the Salk vaccine became available. The Sabin vaccine, after sensational successes in other countries, including the Soviet Union, became available in the U.S. in 1961. Together they have virtually eliminated the ancient scourge of polio ai a health problem in the U. S.

The United States Public Health Service warns, how every, that there is still danger. The virus is still alive, and until Its elimination by universal vaccination there is always the threat of resurgence. The principal dispute today is over the relative merits of the Salk or Sabin vaccines. The Salk is given by injection, the Sabin is taken orally. Some experts say the strongest hope for eliminating polio lies with the Sabin vaccine.

In mass campaigns it has been given to 2 million persons In a single day in a single city. Salk A few doctors say the Salk vaccine "will become as obsolete as the horse and buggy," but all grant that it was the Salk vaccine that accounted for most of the gain so for achieved in the U. S. That gain cost nearly $940 million in research and other expenditures, but has saved the nation an estimated (9.4 billion in other ways, such as medical costs. Basil O'Connor, president of the National Foundation formerly the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis contends the Salk vaccine alone achieved the victory.

His organization supported research on both the Salk and Sabin vaccines. Without downgrading the Sabin vaccine, O'Connor rejects statements that Sabin vaccination is necessary even for people who have already received the complete course of Salk shots. Despite medical arguments, 1964 could be the year that marks the beginning of the death rattle of the polio virus. For two successive weeks this year in early January and in another week in February not a single case of paralytic polio was reported in the U. S.

Mark that well: Not a single paralytic case of the malady which as recently as 1952 reached a peak of 58,000 cases, with 3,000 deaths. And the complete holiday from polio occurred right after health authorities had triumphantly recorded these statistics for the year 1963: Only 431 cases of polio, including 303 paralytic ones the lowest number in a single year since reporting began in 1312. Fewer than two persons per million were paralyzed Street Scene The city of Davenport has been practically free of polio since 1960. Only one case has been reported since then, and in Iowa, no new cases have been reported since 1962. Year No.

Cases 1954 56 1955 8 1956 3 1957 1 1958 0 1959 14 1960 0 1961 1 1962 0 1963 0 1964 0 Iowa Year No. Cases 1954 1,445 1955.... 561 1956 580 1957 78 1958 73 1959 408 1960 25 1961 18 1962 7 1963 0 1964 0 By JIM ARPY Davenport's Orlo Rahn, circus and carny buff, perched proudly in the cab of a truck pulling Royal American wagons off the runs at the edge of the levee showgrounds. Carpenters cross-legged on the bare floor, munching their noon-sandwiches in the midst of what will soon be the carpeted new Bishop's Buffet in downtown Davenport. The ooh-ing and ahh-ing crowds at Vand-er Veer Park, wondering "why we can't grow roses like those in our back yards." Compliment? Her logic's clear and somewhat cold: She thinks she must be getting old When people say with bright-eyed tact, "It's wonderful how young you act.

Elinor K. Rose Dr. Albert Sabin, shown at right, perfected the Sabin oral vaccine for polio. Sabin, of the University of Cincinnati, estimates that 4 million doses of his oral vaccine are administered each month, compared to 2 million doses a month of Salk vaccines. The government approved the Sabin vaccine in 1961.

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