Poliomyelitis In The 1950's

There have been many deadly diseases in the world, and in the United States alone. However, one of the most important diseases in American history is Poliomyelitis. There were crucial ideas that came out of the Polio. The polio epidemic affected lives of people in the 1950’s both with and without being diagnosed, and despite it being cured Polio has changed the world and its views of vaccines and medicine, rehabilitation and government views.

Having been around for centuries, Poliomyelitis has dated back to ancient Egypt, but it became a major issue for the United States between the 1940’s and 1950’s. Now it is known that the disease was spread by a spread of contaminated Fecal matter(Rogers). Mostly affecting the infantile population, Polio

For this reason, the disease was dubbed as infantile paralysis for the young victims and the probable paralysis that came with it. However, there were still many cases of Polio affecting the adults at the time. The disease was still able to spread to others. Before the Polio Vaccine, there was an increase in the diagnosed, it went as high to almost 60,000 in 1953 (Procon). Despite the extensive number of people who had Polio, it did not guarantee death, the highest in the death count was around 3000 in 1952 (Procon). Along with this, some were able to power through Polio, similar to how Franklin D. Roosevelt did when he was

This is where physical therapy came in, this was a system where people with physical disabilities were able to work their muscles to get them to function naturally. Prior to the treatments for polio victims, physical therapy was only used for injured veterans from the war. No one thought of using it for a physical disease such as Polio. Sister Kenny had many ideas to help the muscles in her own way, but still using the basic methods previously used. Roosevelt helped his disabilities at the Warm Springs, but Kenny had the idea of Hot Packs: strips of wood in boiling water (Oshinski). This helped the spasms in the muscles that people felt in their bodies causing the problem. There were many methods involving water, known as hydrotherapy, such as the iron lung, in which a person was placed in an iron tank filled with water hoping to help the fight the disease. Many people came to help with this whether it be watching, or help suspending the person inside. These were all new ways of dealing with diseases and showed how there can be medicine without