Fear of Polio in the 1950s

Fear of Polio in the 1950s

Paralytic poliomyelitis, "polio", held a reign of terror over this nation for decades. But unless you were born before 1955, polio may seem to be just another ephemeral disease that has been nonexistent for years. Those born before 1955 remember having a great fear of this horrible disease which crippled thousands of once active, healthy children. This disease had no cure and no identified causes, which made it all the more terrifying. People did everything that they had done in the past to prevent the spread of disease, such as quarantining areas, but these tactics never seemed to work. Polio could not be contained. Many people did not have the money to care for a family member with polio. This was one of the reasons the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was organized. The March of Dimes, the fund raiser headed by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, raised thousands and thousands of dollars to help people care for their polio stricken family members and to aid in the cost of research for a vaccine that would put an end to this misery that affected the lives of so many people.

Poliomyelitis was the term used by doctors to describe the condition in which the gray (polios) anterior matter of the spinal chord (myelos) was inflamed (-itis). Until a cure was discovered, no one had the slightest idea where "polio" had come from or why it paralyzed so many children. People learned later that, oddly enough, it was the improved sanitary conditions which caused children to be attacked by the virus. Since people were no longer in contact with open sewers and other unsanitary conditions which had exposed them to small amounts of the polio virus as infants, when paralysis is rare, the dis...

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...dy of Poliomyelitis, 1954" Medicine (September 1992): 316-320, at p. 317.

23. Smith, pp. 126-27.

24. Enders, pp. 317-18.

25. Dorothy Horstmann, "Three Landmark Articles about Poliomyelitis," Medicine (September 1992): 320-25, at p. 322.

26. Horstmann, p. 322.

Bibliography

Atkinson, William. Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases. Washington: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1996.

Beneson, Abram. Control of Communicable Diseases in Man. New York: The American Public Health Association, 1970.

Enders, John. "Some Recent Advances in the Study of Poliomyelitis, 1954". Medicine. Sept. 1992: 316-20. (reprinted)

Horstmann, Dorothy. "Three Landmark Articles about Poliomyelitis". Medicine. Sept. 1992: 320-25.

Smith, Jane S. Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1990.