Community Chat

[lulu2]

I do remember it.  Those iron lungs scared me to death. There was a boy on our street on developed polio.

I remember watching (and loving ) the movie Sister Kenny.(clickable)

[NoelSeven]

I remember going to school for the sugar cubes, and news photos of people lined up in iron lungs.

My parents loved camping, and I remember my mother wouldn't let me go swimming because she still worried about it being in the water.

When I was in college, a friend's mother had had polio and was in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.  Her husband had redesigned and rebuilt everything in their house for her convenience.  She was able to reach kitchen cupboards, a short frig etc. 

[Shorty2U]

Yes i remember the vaccine (still have the scar) and sugar cubes at school.

My old neighbor (who was about 15? years older than me), in the city had polio and a steel rod put in her spine. She went on to work in politics. She was  one of the lucky ones to be able to go on w her life. Others were not so lucky.

So I don't understand why parents now days would risk their children getting polio or any of the diseases we have vaccines for!

[151949]

I remember getting my polio vaccinations but I certainly don't recall them being particularly painful.No more than any other vaccination. Certainly, I would think they were way less painful than getting polio.

[HULAGIRL]

I vividly remember when I was a child that when the Salk vaccine became available, my Mother had to go to the county health dept. to pick it up and we had to take it and go to our own doctor for it to be given to me.  I guess that was back in the day when people were trusted to do the right thing.......I couldn't imagine something like that happening today.

[CatsyCline]

My mother had surgery at a distant hospital this spring. The Hospital was founded by an order of Catholic Sisters to help sick children and in the 1930s they started a Polio Ward.

There was one of the Iron Lungs on Display in one of the lobby areas.  Kids came from the city out to LI to be cared for in the hospital's  Polio wards.  This hospital had so many caring friendly workers. it like going back in time to an old movie.

[Cats3000]

Yes.  People in Iron Lungs.  I was told to stay away from public gatherings.  I was told to stay away from the beach.  It was a scourge that, thankfully was ended with the vaccine.  Unfortunately, there are many people who refuise to be vaccinated and countries that don't have vaccination programs.  While polio was supposed to have been eracidated, it is coming back.

[Cats3000]

In 1950, NBC was going to start a late night TV show because Sylvester "Pat" Weaver believed that people would stay up to watch.  NBC hired a personality from the West Coast named Don "Creesh" Hornsby to be the host.  He was a favorite of George Burns, Bob Hope and other celebrities of the time.  About a week or so before the show was to debut, Hornsby apparently contracted polio and was dead shortly thereafter.  He was a relatively young man and a remarkable performer on the cusp of national recognition.  Who knows what his future and the future of late night TV might have been had he lived to do the show.

[Stray]

I remember Sr Kenny, did she work at the LI hospital?

[Still Raining]

I remember it well, it was like a dark cloud.  There were a lot of pictures of little kids in iron lungs and a lot of fear of swimming pools.  When the sugar cube vaccine came out I remember lining up on the weekend in front of the elementry school and having the little cups given to you when you got up to the table.  Am I right in remembering that adults took it too?