Polio. An American Story
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Author(s): D. M. Oshinsky
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195152948
Format: hardback
342pp
Price: £18.99
Review Date: 05 July 2005
Review: May 1949 saw the outbreak of a polio epidemic in San Angelo, West Texas. The people practised cleanliness and the council bathed the streets in DDT twice a day, but still the number of victims grew. The epidemic peaked in July. In 1949 40 000 cases were reported in the USA, with 420 in San Angelo. The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which had been set up by FDR in the 1930s, revolutionalized fundraising and, in 1954 ran its own field trials of the Salk vaccine. This book describes the history of the epidemic, the struggle to overcome and wipe out polio, and the legacy that the events left in the USA.