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FEATURE

POLIO:

Once the Scourge of Summer

By Marvin Forland, MD, MACP

or those of us of a certain age, children of the 1930’s
F through mid-50’s, the joys of school summer vaca-
tions were overcast by a sinister pall. Our parents’
anxieties about the insidious illness that could attack
suddenly in the summer were communicated all too well to us. We
knew the disease could strike overnight and result in paralysis, and
breathing impairment that might require the dreaded “iron lung”.
It could even cause death. Prevention meant avoiding the ballpark,
public swimming pool or the pre-television treat of a movie mati-
nee. The well-known consequences it had on the life of the nation’s
leader through many years of that era, Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
were an on-going reminder of the dangers of the disease. Since
SALK POLIO VACCINE
those fearful childhood summer months, my adult experience with
polio now covers over six decades.
Fast forward to the past mid- twentieth century when one of my
closest college friends was a fellow pre-med student. He was from
Brooklyn and, in addition to being an academic stand-out, he had school, the two of us returned to our residence hall in the late af-
been named an “All New York City” second baseman in his senior ternoon, our clothes still redolent with the acrid odor of formalde-
year of high school. During the summer before his expected ad- hyde from our long hours in the dissection laboratory. Passing
mission to college, polio struck. After a strenuous year of rehabil- through the lobby, we saw a mass of students gathered around the
itation, he entered college using leg braces and crutches, an lounge television set. A senior student excitedly told us the news.
impairment similar in extent to FDR. He got around campus with The results of the field trials of the Salk vaccine were just an-
an Oldsmobile equipped with hand controls, but his success was nounced in Ann Arbor. Polio would soon become a disease of the
propelled by a facile intellect, unswerving focus and an intense de- past. I looked at my friend and thought how narrowly he missed
sire to become a physician. He was Salutatorian of our class and the benefits of this discovery that would have changed his life.
one of its most widely admired members. We went on to the same Move forward again to the mid-80’s. I was directing a medical
medical school and he did not miss a beat, even accomplishing the residency program at a time when we found ourselves confronted
requisite number of newborn deliveries from a sterilely draped with a new plague. This was more selective in occurrence, but
wheel chair. He mused that retractor holding at long surgeries was thought to be transmissible by body fluid exposure. Its cause was
easier for him than us. Supported by his locked braces, he leaned unknown and there was no specific therapy. In confronting AIDS,
on the table and avoided getting leg weary. He would later become anxiety for personal safety was coupled with a sense of professional
the “go-to” radiologist in Staten Island for diagnostic dilemmas impotence. “Why did this occur when I’ve just become a physi-
and a pioneer in invasive radiology. cian?” was a frequent lament I heard from our house officers. I
In mid-April, 1955, toward the end of our first year in medical would point out that doctors incurring personal risk were nothing

26 San Antonio Medicine • September 2018