Polio

Though polio had been around for thousands of years, a combination of factors gave it a significant impact on the early 1950’s. Paradoxically, better sanitation and water supplies had resulted in the fact that many kids hadn’t developed an immunity to it. Although 90% of infectious viral attacks of polio act like some version of the flu, in acute cases nerves are affected, causing paralysis, with the greatest risk of this in children from 5 to 9 years. If there is respiratory paralysis, the victim may die. The polio epidemics of the early 1950’s were the worst seen in the United States. In 1952, 58,000 cases were reported, and in 1953, 35,000 cases.

Intensive care and rehabilitation therapy as we now know them, had their origins in the years of these great polio epidemics. The widespread funding of campaigns to find vaccines and cures also began with the race to find a polio vaccine. Jonas Salk developed an injected vaccine, which required years of testing, but began to be widely administered in 1955. By 1957 the number of polio cases was down to 5,600 and in 1961, only 161 cases were reported in the U.S. Based on testing, oral vaccines developed by Albert Sabin were chosen for worldwide distribution. According to the Global Eradication Initiative, 1,349 cases world-wide were reported in 2010.

The story of the campaign against polio has been widely told. Paul, one of the characters in “The Pastor’s Kids”, contracts polio in 1952 when he is about four years old. The story of how his illness affects the family, including years of rehabilitation and painful reconstructive surgeries are part of the book. In my research, one of the things I have been struck by is the stoicism induced in the kids who had it. One woman who had polio said she still has difficulty crying. It was a powerful message to be told at age four, “Don’t cry. It will make your parents feel bad.”

Kids taking oral vaccine, about 1960

Rehabilitation was long, slow, hard work. But victims of polio were encouraged to overcome disability, “triumph over adversity”, and become independent and productive people. An important part of rehabilitation was learning to accept gracefully the successes achieved, and to compensate for the disabilities that remained. Some people who had polio, after years of working parts of their bodies harder than other parts, are now faced with post-polio syndrome. As a part of coming to terms with this, they are re-visiting their childhood memories of being little kids, isolated from their families and confused about why they were ill.

Once polio vaccines were in place, the disease receded in the collective imagination. This is probably a good thing, but for people of my age, polio was a real part of childhood.