All the attention to the Covid-19 Pandemic and the widespread administration of vaccines to combat it brings to mind another epidemic that occurred in the 1950’s – Polio (virus poliomyelitis).
Polio is a highly contagious virus that lives in the human throat and intestinal tract. It affects people differently. Most of those infected were asymptomatic; others had mild symptoms such as sore throat, fever, stomach pain or vomiting. Yet for some it causes paralysis and sometimes death.
Many aspects of the disease – like its transmission and prevention – took time to figure out. It is now known that the disease is transmitted primarily via feces but also through airborne droplets from person to person. Polio takes 6 to 20 days to incubate and remains contagious for up to two weeks after. It seemed to remain dormant in the winter months with a seasonal surge in the summer. In the early days it was thought to come from swimming during the hot summer months. Some blamed Italian immigrants, others pointed to car exhaust, a few believed cats were to blame and some associated it with flies, mosquitoes, dirt and poverty.
The first major polio epidemic in the United States hit Vermont in 1894 with 132 cases. A larger outbreak struck New York City in 1916, with more than 27,000 cases and 6,000 deaths. As the number of polio cases grew, the paralytic disease changed the way Americans looked at Public Health and disability.
Franklin D. Roosevelt contracted polio in 1920, twelve years before he became president. Although he acknowledged having it, he concealed the extent to which he suffered from polio and the fact that he wore braces to stand and walk. In 1938, Roosevelt founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and spearheaded the March of Dimes for polio research.
As the weather warmed up each year, panic over polio intensified. Late summer was dubbed “polio season”. Public swimming pools were shut down. Movie theaters urged patrons not to sit too close together to avoid spreading the disease. The fear was well grounded. By the 1950’s polio had become one of the most serious communicable diseases among children in the United States.
At the time the 1952 Polio epidemic was the worst outbreak in the nation’s history. Of nearly 60,000 cases reported that year, thousands were paralyzed and more than 3,000 people died. Most of the victims were children. Hospitals set up special units with iron lung machines to keep polio victims alive.
The American polio story has a happy ending. In 1955 Dr. Jonas Salk’s inactivated polio vaccine was deemed “safe, effective and potent” and rates of polio began to drop. By the 1960’s, an oral polio vaccine, made by Albert Sabin, became available. In less than 25 years, due to these vaccines, the United States had virtually eliminated polio.
Some of us are old enough to remember those days in the 1950’s when swimming was discouraged and parents worried. It was common to see pictures of children in iron lung machines and with crutches and braces. And we remember receiving the vaccine as school children lined up at school or the church to get our shots or vaccine-laced sugar cubes, in the case of the Sabin vaccine.
In our local area, we were lucky to have few cases. But one not so lucky was young Sandy Runyon shown in this1955 news clipping in a wheelchair being visited at the Hyde Memorial Rehabilitation Home in Bath, Maine by school children from Cornish. He was the son of the late Elmer and Claire Runyon of Parsonsfield
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