Word: polio
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...severe form, polio or "infantile paralysis" is an uncommon disease. Last week, scare headlines reported that 1949 had already produced about 11,000 cases in the U.S.-a record total for so early in the year. But even so, there were 13,000 who had escaped the disease for every one who was stricken. Comparing 1949 with former years, health officers in New York City, Detroit and Chicago saw reason to hope that the outbreak was at or near its peak, and would soon taper...
Usually the peak comes in the 36th week of the calendar year or the 26th week of the "polio year" (which begins after the low point in mid-March). This year, since the disease got off to a flying start in an early hot spell, the peak may well come early. In the South, where polio strikes sooner, new cases reported have already leveled off and should decline from now on; the North may have to wait three or four weeks for a drop...
Funds & Fancies. Because it strikes tragically at children, polio has received more publicity (especially after Polio Victim Franklin Roosevelt became President) than many a deadlier ailment.* To loosen purse strings, fund raisers have played on parents' heart strings. They have emphasized the bafflement of medical science in the face of so tricky an enemy as polio. Over the years, parents have become so impressed that they can scarcely think of polio without panic...
...July the Continental Casualty Co. of Chicago began promoting a novel, simple insurance policy, exclusively for polio. The two-year premium: $5 for an individual, $10 for a family, with benefits up to $5,000 per case. Last week, Continental found that it had an underwriter's bestseller. It had taken in almost $1,000,000 (90% from family policies) and a polio-conscious public was expected to run the total to $3,000,000 by year...
Many sections of the nation reported the number of polio victims rising rapidly. The U.S. Public Health Service (which tabulates its annual statistics from the third week of March, when cases are fewest) listed a total of 5,415 in the current "polio year," against 4,230 in the same period of 1948. But P.H.S. still insisted that the disease was epidemic only in some areas-Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma, Texas and Southern California...