Polio

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Throughout most of human history, polio has caused paralysis and death. Often found in wet areas, the virus is most acute in cities during summer months. The virus inflames nerves in the brain and spinal cord, causing paralysis and can be passed through contact with contaminated feces or oral secretion. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, paralytic poliomyelitis was perhaps the most feared disease in the nation. In 1950 alone, 33,300 people were stricken. In its widespread impact and public awareness, polio bears a striking resemblance to AIDS.

President Franklin Roosevelt, who had been struck by a form of polio in 1921 and left unable to use his legs, declared a War on Polio, and developing a vaccine became a national priority in the 1930s. While he took an active role in getting the leg braces, iron lungs, and other hardware for Polio treatment to all communities in the 1930s, Roosevelt went to great lengths to limit public awareness of his own affliction. Although there are over 35,000 still photographs of FDR at the Presidential Library, only two show him seated in his wheelchair. Through his own experience, Roosevelt seemed to understand that rehabilitation of the polio patient was a social problem with medical aspects, not a medical problem with social aspects. Speaking to a group at the Warm Springs, Georgia, rehabilitation center, FDR said: "The most important point is that people all over the country know about what we are doing and are following our example in their own communities." Iron lungs and rural retreats became well-known possibilities for those suffering from polio, but FDR sought to reduce their stigma.

Roosevelt sought to raise funds for polio victims throughout his presidency. In 1937 he helped to create the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which offered financial assistance to families with polio victims. The Foundation also helped to establish treatment centers in many American communities, whereas previously polio victims had been shunned to remote facilities. Further donations weremade to a less medical and more popular organization, "The March of Dimes," also created in 1937. In 1938, the two organizations collected $1.8 million; by 1945 they collected $18.9 million. Treatment was only one use of the funds; these donations combined with government funding to initiate the pursuit of a vaccine. Controlling the virus became one of the first examples of the federal government's involvement in Americans' expectations for a safer standard of living. In essence, the public began to look toward the federal government to ensure a healthy environment. Public awareness campaigns made the virus and its modes of transmission part of the American popular culture through 1950.

With federal funds assisting the search, vaccines became available in the early 1960s. The most well-known was created by Jonas Salk. The Salk vaccine allowed most of the industrialized world to defeat the polio virus, creating a significant economic effect: it is said that the polio vaccine pays for itself every three weeks. By the end of the twentieth century 97 percent of all children have been administered a Polio Vaccine. The scourge of early twentieth century America, polio and its control became indicative of the nation's ability to solve social and medical problems with increasing technology.

Daniel, Thomas M., editor. Polio. Rochester, University of Rochester Press, 1997.

Smith, Jane S. A Paralyzing Fear: The Triumph over Polio in America. New York, TV Books, 1998.