Living with Polio: The Epidemic and Its Survivors

From Publishers Weekly
If you were an American child in the 1940s and early '50s and contracted a "summer flu," there was real cause for worry—because the initial signs of polio resembled flu symptoms. More than 400,000 American children in those years did get polio, and many of them survived—including Wilson, a professor of history at Muhlenberg College. This volume, unlike others marking the polio vaccine's discovery, tells the survivors' stories: the difficult, painful journey from diagnosis to recovery, including paralysis, hospital isolation wards, grueling physical therapy, living with disability and, most recently, the emergence of postpolio syndrome, the recurrence of symptoms decades after recovery from the disease. Wilson's account, drawn from more than 150 polio narratives, is perhaps most affecting in highlighting the less well-known moments and facts: a doctor's futile attempt to downplay the harshness of the diagnosis; the double burden on African-Americans when hospitals would not admit them; and children being children even in the hospital wards, as they have spitball fights and play pranks. Wilson's account is a fitting testimony to the survivors' suffering and courage. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Moving and informative, personal and universal-a highly readable account of thee plague of poliomyelitis by a fine writer who has experienced the illness himself."--Richard Selzer, author of The Doctor Stories

Book Description
Polio was the most dreaded childhood disease of twentieth-century America. Every summer during the 1940s and 1950s, parents were terrorized by the thought that polio might cripple their children. They warned their children not to drink from public fountains, to avoid swimming pools, and to stay away from movie theaters and other crowded places. Whenever and wherever polio struck, hospitals filled with victims of the virus. Many experienced only temporary paralysis, but others faced a lifetime of disability.

Living with Polio is the first book to focus primarily on the personal stories of the men and women who had acute polio and lived with its crippling consequences. Writing from personal experience, polio survivor Daniel J. Wilson shapes this impassioned book with the testimonials of more than one hundred polio victims, focusing on the years between 1930 and 1960. He traces the entire life experience of the survivors--from the alarming diagnosis all the way to the recent development of post-polio syndrome, a condition in which the symptoms of the disease may return two or three decades after they originally surfaced.

Living with Polio follows every physical and emotional stage of the disease: the loneliness of long separations from family and friends suffered by hospitalized victims; the rehabilitation facilitieswhere survivors spent a full year or more painfully trying to regain the use of their paralyzed muscles; and then the return home, where they were faced with readjusting to school or work with the aid of braces, crutches, or wheelchairs while their families faced the difficult responsibilities of caring for and supporting a child or spouse with a disability.

Poignant and gripping, Living with Polio is a compelling history of the enduring physical and psychological experience of polio straight from the rarely heard voices of its survivors.




From the Inside Flap
Polio was the most dreaded childhood disease of twentieth-century America. Every summer during the 1940s and 1950s, parents were terrorized by the thought that polio might cripple their children. They warned their children not to drink from public fountains, to avoid swimming pools, and to stay away from movie theaters and other crowded places. Whenever and wherever polio struck, hospitals filled with victims of the virus. Many experienced only temporary paralysis, but others faced a lifetime of disability.

Living with Polio is the first book to focus primarily on the personal stories of the men and women who had acute polio and lived with its crippling consequences. Writing from personal experience, polio survivor Daniel J. Wilson shaped this impassioned book from the testimonials of more than one hundred polio victims, focusing on the years between 1930 and 1960. Wilson traces the entire life experience of the survivors-from the alarming diagnosis all the way through to the most recent development of post-polio syndrome, a condition in which the symptoms of the disease may return two or three decades after they originally surface.

Living with Polio follows every physical and emotional stage of the disease: the loneliness of long separations from family and friends suffered by hospitalized victims; the rehabilitation facilities where survivors spent a full year or more painfully trying to regain the use of their paralyzed muscles; and then the return home, where they were faced with readjusting to school or work with the aid of braces, crutches, or wheelchairs while their families faced the difficult responsibilities of caring for and supporting a child or spouse with a disability.

Poignant and gripping, Living with Polio is a compelling history of the enduring physical and psychological experience of polio straight from the rarely heard voices of its survivors.



About the Author
Daniel J. Wilson is professor of history at Muhlenberg College. He is the author of four previous books, including Science, Community, and the Transformation of American Philosophy, also published by the University of Chicago Press.





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Marking the 50th anniversary of the development of the polio vaccine, this book captures the nightmare of polio and its aftermath through the experiences of its victims. A polio survivor himself, Wilson (history, Muhlenberg Coll.) has drawn on 150 personal narratives, published and unpublished, weaving quotes from those accounts with historical information on polio treatment and rehabilitation. The result is a vivid portrait of a devastating disease and its repercussions, as well as a glimpse into the physical, social, and psychological challenges of being physically disabled in mid-20th century America. For readers who did not experience the polio epidemic firsthand, this book dramatically demonstrates why the polio vaccine is such a significant milestone in modern medical history. Highly recommended for academic, public, and medical libraries and all medical history and disability studies collections. [Jeffrey Kluger's Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio focuses on Salk's research, while David M. Oshinsky's Polio: An American Story recalls the wider search for a vaccine.-Ed.]-Janet A. Crum, Oregon Health & Science Univ. Lib., Portland Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.


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