Hollykatland

Instructing nurses on use of an iron lung for a polio patient, 5/23/1958. Online here.

POLIO STRIKES BACK By Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs

Child at "French clinic for polio victims" , Marshall Plan records, NARA ID 19992258.

Like COVID, polio is an infectious disease that once terrorized people worldwide and led to quarantines, shutdowns, illness and death. Some polio patients relied on not ventilators to breathe but an “iron lung” - a large pressurized cylinder wherein victims would lie and oxygen would be drawn into the person’s lungs by creating a vacuum.

Polio timeline: 1894-1st documented US Polio epidemic 1921 - FDR contracts polio at age 39 (see FDR and Polio) 1954- Salk polio vaccine trials begin for 1.8 million children. 1955 - Scientists deem polio vaccine safe and effective. 1979 - Polio considered "eliminated" from the US thanks to widespread polio vaccination.

But IT'S BACK. 2022 - CDC announces (9/13/22) polio cases in New York.

Patient in an iron lung, USAF # A52930AC, NARA ID 204964233.

Student Robert Henninger gets the polio vaccine in 1954. Photo by Getty Images.

President Eisenhower’s support for the vaccine drive (NARA ID 12166372).

WW2 drawing by Charles Henry Alston for the Office of War Information. NARA ID 535617.

Prescription for FDR's leg braces that includes his note that the braces don’t fit, 7/5/1926. FDR Family records, FDR Library.

One president was directly affected by polio - FDR, who contracted polio while on vacation in 1921 at age 39 and became paralyzed from the waist down. While he hid this condition from the public, for the rest of his life he tried to find a way to rehabilitate himself and others afflicted with infantile paralysis. He established the March of Dimes on January 3, 1938, with the original name "National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis."

More online: