1/13/2024 0 Comments Polio outbreakPolio Hysteria Finally Subsides With VaccineĪmerican scientist and physician Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine. And the comparable odds of contracting the disease remained small, the odds of long-term consequences minute, to say nothing of death. The March of Dimes organization campaigned aggressively to fund the development of a vaccine. The 1930s had seen significant improvements in the iron lung, a negative pressure chamber that could assist the breathing process for severely paralyzed patients. There were 25,000 cases in 1946-as many as in 1916, writes Oshinski-and the number grew almost every year up to its peak of 52,000 in 1952. Yet, the number of cases grew larger each season. And the seasonal surge of the disease in summer and apparent dormancy in winter matched the rise and fall of the mosquito population.Īfter World War II, Americans doused their neighborhoods, homes and children with the highly toxic pesticide DDT in the hope of banishing polio, Elena Conis reports in the journal Environmental History. Most middle-class Americans tended to associate disease with flies, dirt and poverty. The prevalence of polio in late spring and summer popularized the “fly theory,” explains Vincent Cirillo in the American Entomologist. 'Fly Theory' Falsely Associated Polio With InsectsĪ fly trap was used at the house of a child with polio to collect specimen flies to be sent to Yale University for polio research experiments. But its long incubation period, among other things, made it difficult even for experts to determine how the virus transferred. Some blamed Italian immigrants, others pointed to car exhausts, a few believed cats were to blame. The disease had first emerged in the United States in 1894, but the first large epidemic happened in 1916 when public health experts recorded 27,000 cases and 6,000 deaths-roughly a third in New York City alone.Īfter rabies and smallpox, polio was only the third viral disease scientists had discovered at the time, writes David Oshinksi in Polio: An American Story. Transmitted primarily via feces but also through airborne droplets from person to person, polio took six to 20 days to incubate and remained contagious for up to two weeks after. For two to 10 of those suffering paralysis, the end result was death. For a few though, polio affected the brain and spinal cord, which could lead meningitis and, for one out of 200, paralysis. The virus was poliomyelitis, a highly contagious disease with symptoms including common flu-like symptoms such as sore throat, fever, tiredness, headache, a stiff neck and stomach ache. The scene repeated itself across the nation, especially on the Eastern seaboard and Midwest. And one of the town’s best physicians diagnosed his patients based on his “clinical impression” rather than taking the chance of getting infected during the administration of the proper diagnostic test, writes Gareth Williams, Paralyzed with Fear: The Story of Polio. Some motorists who had to stop for gas in San Angelo would not fill up their deflated tires, afraid they’d bring home air containing the infectious virus. All theaters, swimming pools, churches, schools and public meeting places were closed.įearful of the spread of the contagious virus, the city closed pools, swimming holes, movie theaters, schools and churches, forcing priests to reach out to their congregations on local radio. Children in San Angelo residential areas watch Texas Health employees spray DDT over vacant lots in the city to combat a recent increase in the number of polio cases.
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