ABSTRACT
Poliovirus, a member of the Enterovirus genus in the Picornaviridae family, is the etiological agent of poliomyelitis, an acute paralytic disease. Humans are the only natural hosts of poliovirus. The earliest recorded description of poliomyelitis was found on a funeral stele of a nineteenth dynasty Egyptian priest who had his right leg atrophied. Michael Underwood described poliomyelitis in 1789 as “debility of the lower extremities in children.” Jacob von Heine recognized poliomyelitis and dened this disease as infantile spinal paralysis in 1840. Duchenne identied the spinal anterior horn cells as the spot of the damaged part in 1855, and this nding was subsequently conrmed by Charchot and Joffroy in 1870. Otto Wickman rst recognized that poliomyelitis was an infectious disease in 1905 [1], and Karl Landsteiner and Erwin Popper showed that the disease was caused by poliovirus in 1909 [2]. In 1949, John Enders, Thomas Weller, and Frederick Robbins successfully cultured poliovirus in nonneuronal tissue culture, laying the foundation for the later development of the poliomyelitis vaccines.
