Word: polio
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Five years ago Dr. Clarence W. Dail, at Los Angeles' Rancho Los Amfgos Hospital, noticed that one of his polio patients, a young man whose breathing muscles were almost completely paralyzed, had unconsciously developed a substitute way of breathing. He and Dr. John Affeldt, the physician in charge of the polio respirator center, believed that other patients might be taught to do the same, and began to experiment. Last week the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis announced that their new method will be taught to partially paralyzed patients at all of its centers. Its name: glossopharyngeal, or "frog," breathing...
...With 5,373 cases reported, the 1953 polio season was running neck & neck with 1952 (5,415 to the same date). One-third of the gamma globulin set aside for mass inoculations had already been parceled out among eleven communities in eight states...
...Health officers in Montgomery County, Ala. proclaimed that the great gamma-globulin inoculation campaign (TIME, July 13) had been a success: only six new polio cases had been reported in the week. Actually, the promptness of the sharp decline indicated that the whole costly program might have been unnecessary: the outbreak was probably dying out naturally since gamma globulin, so far as is known, could not bring such quick results...
Technically not an epidemic site, Alabama's Montgomery County (pop. 139,000) was the first to gain recognition from federal officials as an emergency area entitled to use gamma globulin for mass inoculations. As the county's list of polio victims neared 80, the Office of Defense Mobilization allotted it 250,000 cc (67 gallons), enough to provide shots for more than 30,000 youngsters under ten. Montgomery's doctors and nurses, medical personnel from two Air Force fields, and housewives recruited by the Parent-Teacher Association, set up 18 inoculation stations in schools. From morning...
...week's end, with 86 cases of polio and four deaths, Montgomery County officials felt that they had done all they could. They expected to see little effect for a week; after that, they hoped, temporary immunity conferred by gamma globulin would cut down the total of new polio cases, and especially the proportion of paralytic attacks...