Summers before polio vaccine was discovered and administered

[rurallib]

Anyone else here old enough to remember what summers were like back then.
I was around 6 when the vaccine became available.
Summers were strange - no going to the pool, no drinking from fountains, no going barefoot.
That is what little I can remember. I remember my parents were scared shitless that one of us (3 boys) would get it.
At the time no one knew how it was contracted. Kids (mostly) go to sleep at night and can't walk in the morning.
We had a friend who had it and knew of someone whose kid had contracted it.
Talk about real fear for your kids health.

eta - definetly no going to the swimming pond or backyard showers etc.

[Silver Swan]

1. I remember it well.

I was nine when the vaccine became available.

Before that I remember that my mother wouldn't let us go swimming on Sunday, but other days were okay. There was a lake with a beach in the town near us, but there were too many out-of-towners there on Sunday, which meant more chances to catch polio.

We were allowed to go barefoot, and I don't recall being forbidden to use a drinking fountain.

I have read that one theory about the polio epidemics in the twentieth century blamed the increase in indoor plumbing. Without outhouses, people were not exposed to as many pathogens (including the polio virus) and thus did not build up any immunity.

[rurallib]

9. Every family probably had different approaches

Water was the big fear. Whatever form it came in. I am not sure why the water fountain was forbidden.
My city had just opened a brand new huge (for the time) pool. And for most of 5 summers it was nearly empty.

[MiddleFingerMom]

2. For a story about the polio vaccine, the local paper's photographer took my picture...

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...with my dose on a sugar cube on my stuck-out tongue.
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HONEST... it was polio vaccine.
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Decades later, I did a paper for a sociology course about the history of
LSD, and the COOLEST thing I had found was an article about a therapist
out in Hollywood who was treating patients with LSD in the late 50's/early
60's before it became illegal.
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There was a picture of one of his patients -- a WILDLY exuberant Cary Grant
with HIS dose on a sugar cube on his stuck-out tongue.
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Photographic evidence that Cary Grant and I had much more in common than
previously thought.
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But I don't remember the scare -- guess it was pre-vaccine for the most part.
.

[KatyaR]

3. We had those sugar cubes, too.

I had forgotten about it until I saw a show on PBS about polio.

[texanwitch]

4. I do remember the sugar cubes but not the fear.

Glad I was to young, the fear had to be terrible.

[Odin2005]

5. My grandma walked with a limp for her whole life because of Polio.

The Anti-Vaxers want us to return to that.

[Dogtown]

10. And the Tea Posers.

I wouldn't have gotten the vaccine had it not been for government sponsored programs in the public school systems.

[murielm99]

6. I remember.

We all knew kids who had leg braces or crutches. We all knew what an iron lung was. At that time, I think polio survivors were more common than divorce.

My mom never did let us learn to swim, even though we had the vaccine. I think it was just her fear of water and an excuse to keep us under her thumb. My brothers did learn to swim when they were older. They never enjoyed swimming, and were never very good at it. At least they have that survival skill. I do not. I never learned to swim.

[sarge43]

7. I remember my mother being terrified about it and she was no wimp.

When the vaccine became available, I think my feet hit the ground twice between home and the doctor's office.

[theNotoriousP.I.G.]

8. My dad had Polio as a kid

got it from swimming in the local pond. His left leg gave him problems for the rest of his life.

[dembotoz]

11. sounds like dat durn blasted socialized medicene to me

free market


free market


free market



free market

(being sarcastic- for those who have not had enough coffee today)

[dembotoz]

12. eisenhower administration??????