Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
My big sister z"l once talked about people avoiding the beach during the summer, when the risk of contracting polio was thought to be at its highest.
My older cousin Helene remembers a polio outbreak in the Catskills; all the camps closed (she was a counselor), and the kids were sent home. Afraid.
I remember that every 'social studies' text I had during my grade school days had a picture of an iron lung, or a picture of a room with several (occupied) iron lungs, or both.
I also remember that first sugar cube.
In the 1980s, there were polio outbreaks that were traced to sewage-tainted drinking water. That may not tell us how the first guy got it, but we know how it spread.
That makes we wonder if folks, pre-Salk, thought of polio as waterborne, or not. Was it the crowds, or the swimming, that were keeping people away from the beaches & lakes?
The current chatter (debate is too elevated a term) about re-opening the beaches has me wondering what y'all remember from those days.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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I can't remember the Polio advertising but I remember the poster in our doctors for measles.
It was a photo of a young boy with a pair of huge hearing aids in his ears saying
"Did You Remember My Batteries Mummy?"
with the byline
"No she forgot, as she forgot to get him immunised against Measles!"
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I just know I had 4 Polio shots over several months in 1963 based upon my shot records.
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It was 1955 before the Salk Vaccine was declared 'safe'. The last major polio epidemic in Canada was in 1959 and by the 1970's they declared the virus under control. In 1974 Canada was declared polio free.
I lost quite a few school friends due to polio and many others ended up paralyzed and in wheelchairs.
I grew up in Ontario, a half hour's drive from the sand beaches and five minutes from Georgian Bay, but until I was in my 20's with a family of my own, the beaches and swimming pools were off limit. People were terrified of getting sick from being near 'dirty' water. The ironic part of it was that our sewer,the beaches and swimming pools were off limit. People were terrified of getting sick from being near 'dirty' water. The ironic part of it was that our sewer pipes refuse dumped right into the river that ran through the middle of the city out into Georgian Bay. I was more terrified of dying from fright after seeing the sewer rats than I was of catching a virus from the water at the beaches.
Every summer it seemed like the majority of our city was under quarantine. At that time they had quarantine signs attached to doors of residences where people had diseases such as measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, polio, whooping cough, etc.
We were never told why we couldn't go outside, or why we couldn't have family or friends visit. When we asked 'why?' we were just told 'because I said so'. End of discussion. LOL
Here's a good article I came across. It pretty well sums up what it was like during the 1940's and early 1950's.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-growing-up-in-quarantineland-childhood-nightmares-in-the-age-of-germs/
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I'm a little younger but I remember the sugar cube! At school they just lined us all up and we each got the vaccine. No mamby pamby parents yelling about their rights not to have us vacinated! It was just done wholesale for the common good. And we managed to eradicate the disease. There is a lesson there.
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See photo below of Vervet monkey's being air lifted from Uganda to Germany for the manufacture of the polio vaccine 1964.
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I remember the sugar cube. There was a long line of parents and their kids. One of my classmates had a sister that passed away due to polio.
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I remember my whole family going together to get the pink drop on the sugar cube and standing in line to do so with many hundreds of other people.
Did anyone ever receive a polio booster shot? I had to make a business trip to Angola in about 2003 and needed to get a yellow fever shot before I left. Had to travel to Oklahoma City to do so from the state agency that handled such inoculations. The nurse that would administer the yellow fever shot tried to talk me into taking all types of inoculations while I was there. I did consent to the polio booster and a tetanus booster as I was due for the tetanus booster. I was surprised by the existence of the polio booster. I also signed up for the initial hepatitis A and hepatitis B inoculations (one required another shot a month later, while the other required two more shots at one-month intervals).
I had traveled up there with another person from work who may also have had to travel to Angola. He signed up for all the inoculations that I did as well as two additional ones (seven injections in all to my total of five). Once we had settled on what inoculations we were to receive, we first had to pay for everything at a different location in the building before coming back for the actual shots. While I am not overly nervous about needles, when we came back and I saw the twelve syringes with needles all lined up and ready to go, that did give me a bit of a fright.
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Some of you are old enough to have lived pre-Salk and, of those, some might even remember ...
My big sister z"l once talked about people avoiding the beach during the summer, when the risk of contracting polio was thought to be at its highest.
My older cousin Helene remembers a polio outbreak in the Catskills; all the camps closed (she was a counselor), and the kids were sent home. Afraid.
I remember that every 'social studies' text I had during my grade school days had a picture of an iron lung, or a picture of a room with several (occupied) iron lungs, or both.
I also remember that first sugar cube.
In the 1980s, there were polio outbreaks that were traced to sewage-tainted drinking water. That may not tell us how the first guy got it, but we know how it spread.
That makes we wonder if folks, pre-Salk, thought of polio as waterborne, or not. Was it the crowds, or the swimming, that were keeping people away from the beaches & lakes?
The current chatter (debate is too elevated a term) about re-opening the beaches has me wondering what y'all remember from those days.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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re: Polio, Remembered
I can't remember the Polio advertising but I remember the poster in our doctors for measles.
It was a photo of a young boy with a pair of huge hearing aids in his ears saying
"Did You Remember My Batteries Mummy?"
with the byline
"No she forgot, as she forgot to get him immunised against Measles!"
Login to Like
this post
re: Polio, Remembered
I just know I had 4 Polio shots over several months in 1963 based upon my shot records.
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05:24:32am
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re: Polio, Remembered
It was 1955 before the Salk Vaccine was declared 'safe'. The last major polio epidemic in Canada was in 1959 and by the 1970's they declared the virus under control. In 1974 Canada was declared polio free.
I lost quite a few school friends due to polio and many others ended up paralyzed and in wheelchairs.
I grew up in Ontario, a half hour's drive from the sand beaches and five minutes from Georgian Bay, but until I was in my 20's with a family of my own, the beaches and swimming pools were off limit. People were terrified of getting sick from being near 'dirty' water. The ironic part of it was that our sewer,the beaches and swimming pools were off limit. People were terrified of getting sick from being near 'dirty' water. The ironic part of it was that our sewer pipes refuse dumped right into the river that ran through the middle of the city out into Georgian Bay. I was more terrified of dying from fright after seeing the sewer rats than I was of catching a virus from the water at the beaches.
Every summer it seemed like the majority of our city was under quarantine. At that time they had quarantine signs attached to doors of residences where people had diseases such as measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, polio, whooping cough, etc.
We were never told why we couldn't go outside, or why we couldn't have family or friends visit. When we asked 'why?' we were just told 'because I said so'. End of discussion. LOL
Here's a good article I came across. It pretty well sums up what it was like during the 1940's and early 1950's.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-growing-up-in-quarantineland-childhood-nightmares-in-the-age-of-germs/
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re: Polio, Remembered
I'm a little younger but I remember the sugar cube! At school they just lined us all up and we each got the vaccine. No mamby pamby parents yelling about their rights not to have us vacinated! It was just done wholesale for the common good. And we managed to eradicate the disease. There is a lesson there.
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re: Polio, Remembered
See photo below of Vervet monkey's being air lifted from Uganda to Germany for the manufacture of the polio vaccine 1964.
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re: Polio, Remembered
I remember the sugar cube. There was a long line of parents and their kids. One of my classmates had a sister that passed away due to polio.
Login to Like
this post
re: Polio, Remembered
I remember my whole family going together to get the pink drop on the sugar cube and standing in line to do so with many hundreds of other people.
Did anyone ever receive a polio booster shot? I had to make a business trip to Angola in about 2003 and needed to get a yellow fever shot before I left. Had to travel to Oklahoma City to do so from the state agency that handled such inoculations. The nurse that would administer the yellow fever shot tried to talk me into taking all types of inoculations while I was there. I did consent to the polio booster and a tetanus booster as I was due for the tetanus booster. I was surprised by the existence of the polio booster. I also signed up for the initial hepatitis A and hepatitis B inoculations (one required another shot a month later, while the other required two more shots at one-month intervals).
I had traveled up there with another person from work who may also have had to travel to Angola. He signed up for all the inoculations that I did as well as two additional ones (seven injections in all to my total of five). Once we had settled on what inoculations we were to receive, we first had to pay for everything at a different location in the building before coming back for the actual shots. While I am not overly nervous about needles, when we came back and I saw the twelve syringes with needles all lined up and ready to go, that did give me a bit of a fright.
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