- Antone Pierucci
- Posted On
This Week in History: A history of the battle against polio
Poliomyelitis, or polio, has spread its malignant roots through every age of humankind.
The disease is older than recorded history, as much a part of what it means to be human as animal domestication and creating the written word.
In ancient Egypt, a grave marker dated to the second millennium B.C. depicts a priest with a crutch and a foot deformity commonly seen in patients with polio.
How many victims did polio claim between the dawn of recorded history and the modern era? It’s anyone’s guess, really. The ancients were so used to death and disease that it was futile to differentiate between one and the other.
Only in modern times have people felt the need to name the exact ailment that was in the process of killing them, as if calling it out reduced its danger.
Actually, it eventually did, and scientists began identifying diseases with the hope of curing them.
But it was a long process.
It took several thousand years for us to pinpoint polio and formally describe it in all its ghastly manifestations.
The first detailed case of the disease took place in 1773 when Sir Walter Scott, the Scottish poet, contracted it as a young boy.
His doctor at the time identified the ailment as a “teething fever,” but from detailed accounts describing his sickness, we can safely say it was in fact polio.
Sixteen years later, the English physician Michael Underwood provided the first clinical description of the disease.
Another half century went by before further descriptions were made and a detailed analysis conducted on the disease’s effect on the spinal cord.
It eventually received its name, Poliomyelitis.
The name itself describes its effects: it is derived from the Greek words for Gray and Marrow (referring to the spinal cord) and inflammation.
Polio frequently strikes the young, becoming endemic in the hot summer months. Most of its victims survive the ordeal without any permanent side effects, but others aren’t so lucky.
Such patients are left with permanent evidence of Polio’s malignant touch, in the form of partial or complete paralysis of the spine. In addition to spinal paralysis, the disease can cause paralysis of the lungs.
The first epidemic of polio in America occurred in 1894 in Vermont. From then on, the disease swept through cities every few years, becoming a macabre boogeyman for parents of young children to worry about.
The most visible historic case of the disease is of course President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who contracted polio in 1921.
For the rest of his life, FDR would be a benefactor for polio victims. In 1927, he formed the Warm Springs Foundation in Georgia, a rehabilitation center. A few years later, he organized a party on his birthday to raise funds to support the foundation.
In the depth of the Great Depression, celebrities and wealthy New York socialites attended these galas and gave freely of their money. By the time he became president, these birthday balls had become so successful, that he formed a national foundation: the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, now known as the March of Dimes.
FDR might be the most public victim of the disease, and the most prominent benefactor when we think about it today, but in reality, there were many others working to raise money for research and to support rehabilitation.
The march towards first dealing with, and then eradicating the disease began soon after the first major epidemics, but stalled shortly thereafter.
In 1908, a scientist identified the type of virus that caused polio. Two decades later, the iron lung was invented to help those patients suffering from lung paralysis.
Milestones in the study of viruses eventually played a pivotal role in finding the cure for the disease.
In 1931, Dr. William J. Elford developed a porcelain filter small enough to trap viruses. This also proved that viruses were solid particles, not liquid as had been suggested before. And so, bit by bit, discovery after discovery, the world came closer to eradicating this ancient disease.
By the 1930s, various teams of scientists were working to develop a vaccine for polio. In 1935, two such experiments ended with disastrous consequences, with many of the tests subjects contracting the disease and others dying.
World War II delayed any further extensive studies into Polio, but immediately after scientists were back on the track.
The man to finally meet with success was Dr. Jonas Salk. A research scientist at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Salk was able to grow an inactivated (dead), controlled form of the virus.
You see, like all vaccines and inoculations, the tested polio vaccines contained small amounts of the virus itself. These served to allow the patient’s immune system to overcome the enfeebled virus, thus growing immunity from future contractions.
On March 26, 1953, Dr. Salk announced to the world that he had successfully tested a polio vaccine. Within months, schoolchildren throughout the country were receiving the vaccinations.
Between 1955 and 1957, the cases of polio in the U.S. dropped 85 to 90 percent.
After millennia of suffering and centuries of fighting, we finally had a tool to eradicate the hurt and suffering of polio.
But the most extraordinary thing about this story?
When asked who held the patent on the vaccine, Dr. Salk replied, “Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the Sun?”
Antone Pierucci is curator of history at the Riverside County Park and Open Space District and a freelance writer whose work has been featured in such magazines as Archaeology and Wild West as well as regional California newspapers.