Polio Books

Polio's Legacy This book shows readers the reality of polio and how it alters human lives. Thirty-five polio survivors open their hearts to explain their experiences--the day they were diagnosed with polio, their initial hospital stay, the therapy and the treatments they received, and the effects of polio on their childhood, youth, adulthood, and relationships with others. The editor, a polio survivor himself, and two colleagues obtained interviews with these survivors. The result is this written tribute to the survival of the human spirit. The book begins with an introduction to the disease. Next, the stories of the thirty-five interviewees are detailed and arranged into chapters according to the survivors' common life experiences. Finally, the editor provides a conclusion in hopes of "making some sense of polio's legacy." Readers will see how polio's legacy reveals itself through these stories. Because these are personal accounts about humans with a disease, they also provide information about others with disabling disorders. "Polio's Legacy" will be of prime interest to those in the medical field and anyone who wants to see the reality of the individual's fight for life.

Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio Jonas Salk was born shortly before one of the worst polio epidemics in United States history.

In medical school when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was diagnosed with the disease shortly before assuming the Presidency, Salk was given an impetus to conduct studies on polio. His progress in combating the virus was hindered by the politics of medicine and by a rival researcher determined to discredit his proposed solution. But Salk's perseverance made history-and for more than fifty years his vaccine has saved countless lives, bringing humanity close to eradicating polio throughout the world.

Splendid Solution chronicles Dr. Salk's race against time-and a growing epidemic that reached 57,000 reported cases in the summer of 1952-to achieve an unparalleled medical breakthrough that made him a cultural hero and icon for a whole generation.

Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine (Unlocking the Secrets of Science) One of the best known microbiologists, Salk is celebrated mainly for his discovery of the polio vaccine. In the early twentieth century, polio became a menacing disease. It struck hundreds of thousands of children and young adults. The virus didn't just spread disease. It also spread fear. Since polio struck mainly in the summer, warm weather and vacations were looked upon with dread. Families no longer went to the beach. Mothers kept their children indoors on warm, sunny days. For a long time, it looked like the summers of fear were going to be a part of American life.

Jonas Salk changed all that. He would solve the riddle to one of the most tragic mysteries in the last one hundred years. Born to immigrant parents with little money, he was the first in his family to go to college. He would grow up to challenge some of the brightest men of his time. He would confront doctors and scientists who doubted his methods, questioned his ability and ridiculed his results.

Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine is part of the series, Unlocking the Secrets of Science. This series profiles the achievers of the 20th century in the fields of science, medicine, and technology. Written especially for young adult readers, the series helps place each significant invention, discovery, or development in historical perspective while exploring the life of the person responsible for each breakthrough. No science fiction story even approximates the mystery and suspense contained in these true science biographies.

During the first half of the twentieth century, epidemics of polio caused fear and panic, killing some who contracted the disease, leaving others with varying degrees of paralysis. The defeat of polio became a symbol of modern technology’s ability to reduce human suffering. But while the story of polio may have seemed to end on April 12, 1956, when the Salk vaccine was declared a success, millions of people worldwide are polio survivors.

In this dazzling memoir, Anne Finger interweaves her personal experience with polio with a social and cultural history of the disease. Anne contracted polio as a very young child, just a few months before the Salk vaccine became widely available. After six months of hospitalization, she returned to her family’s home in upstate New York, using braces and crutches. In her memoir, she writes about the physical expansiveness of her childhood, about medical attempts to “fix” her body, about family violence, job discrimination, and a life rich with political activism, writing, and motherhood.

She also writes an autobiography of the disease, describing how it came to widespread public attention during a 1916 epidemic in New York in which immigrants, especially Italian immigrants, were scapegoated as being the vectors of the disease. She relates the key roles that Franklin Roosevelt played in constructing polio as a disease that could be overcome with hard work, as well as his ties to the nascent March of Dimes, the prototype of the modern charity. Along the way, we meet the formidable Sister Kenny, the Australian nurse who claimed to have found a revolutionary treatment for polio and who was one of the most admired women in America at mid-century; a group of polio survivors who formed the League of the Physically Handicapped to agitate for an end to disability discrimination in Depression-era relief projects; and the founders of the early disability-rights movement, many of them polio survivors who, having been raised to overcome obstacles and triumph over their disabilities, confronted a world filled with barriers and impediments that no amount of hard work could overcome.

Anne Finger writes with the candor and the skill of a novelist, and shows not only how polio shaped her life, but how it shaped American cultural experience as well.

The Official Patient's Sourcebook on Post-Polio Syndrome: A Revised and Updated Directory for the Internet Age This sourcebook has been created for patients who have decided to make education and Internet-based research an integral part of the treatment process. Although it gives information useful to doctors, caregivers and other health professionals, it also tells patients where and how to look for information covering virtually all topics related to post-polio syndrome, from the essentials to the most advanced areas of research. The title of this book includes the word official. This reflects the fact that the sourcebook draws from public, academic, government, and peer-reviewed research. Selected readings from various agencies are reproduced to give you some of the latest official information available to date on post-polio syndrome. Following an introductory chapter, the sourcebook is organized into three parts. PART I: THE ESSENTIALS; Chapter 1. The Essentials on Post-Polio Syndrome: Guidelines; Chapter 2. Seeking Guidance; Chapter 3. Clinical Trials and Post-Polio Syndrome; PART II: ADDITIONAL RESOURCES AND ADVANCED MATERIAL; Chapter 4. Studies on Post-Polio Syndrome; Chapter 5. Books on Post-Polio Syndrome; Chapter 6. Multimedia on Post-Polio Syndrome; Chapter 7. Periodicals and News on Post-Polio Syndrome; PART III. APPENDICES; Appendix A. Researching Nutrition; Appendix B. Finding Medical Libraries; Appendix C. Your Rights and Insurance; ONLINE GLOSSARIES; POST-POLIO SYNDROME GLOSSARY; INDEX. Related topics include: Polio, Late Effects, Post-Polio Muscular Atrophy, Post-Polio Sequelae, Postpoliomyelitis syndrome.This sourcebook has been created for patients who have decided to make education and Internet-based research an integral part of the treatment process. Although it gives information useful to doctors, caregivers and other health professionals, it also tells patients where and how to look for information covering virtually all topics related to post-polio syndrome, from the essentials to the most advanced areas of research. The title of this book includes the word official. This reflects the fact that the sourcebook draws from public, academic, government, and peer-reviewed research. Selected readings from various agencies are reproduced to give you some of the latest official information available to date on post-polio syndrome. Following an introductory chapter, the sourcebook is organized into three parts. PART I: THE ESSENTIALS; Chapter 1. The Essentials on Post-Polio Syndrome: Guidelines; Chapter 2. Seeking Guidance; Chapter 3. Clinical Trials and Post-Polio Syndrome; PART II: ADDITIONAL RESOURCES AND ADVANCED MATERIAL; Chapter 4. Studies on Post-Polio Syndrome; Chapter 5. Books on Post-Polio Syndrome; Chapter 6. Multimedia on Post-Polio Syndrome; Chapter 7. Periodicals and News on Post-Polio Syndrome; PART III. APPENDICES; Appendix A. Researching Nutrition; Appendix B. Finding Medical Libraries; Appendix C. Your Rights and Insurance; ONLINE GLOSSARIES; POST-POLIO SYNDROME GLOSSARY; INDEX. Related topics include: Polio, Late Effects, Post-Polio Muscular Atrophy, Post-Polio Sequelae, Postpoliomyelitis syndrome.

A Summer Plague: Polio and Its Survivors This book is the most comprehensive and compelling account of the century`s polio epidemics yet written. Interweaving biographical, political, social, and medical history, Tony Gould-a distinguished British writer and himself a polio survivor-traces the rise and fall of the epidemic and describes the individuals who were influential in its treatment and conquest.

The End of Polio: A Global Effort to End a Disease Internationally acclaimed photographer Sebastio Salgado focuses on human determination in this inspiring and poignant chronicle of the global initiative to eradicate polio. In a world convulsed by war and hatred, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, begun in 1988, stands as a rare and inspiring example of what can be done when the world works together against a common enemy. Sebastio Salgado, known for his dedication to the plight of the world's dispossessed in Workers (1994) and Migrations (2000), traveled to five polio endemic countries-Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Pakistan, Somalia, and Sudan-to photograph the campaign to eradicate polio by 2005. He shares those photographs here. The book also includes a substantial essay by UNICEF writer Siddharth Dube, a comprehensive history of the disease presented in the form of an illustrated timeline; and information on how to help. THE END OF POLIO is an inspiring testament to the possibility for successful cooperation between nations and communities on levels ranging from local to global, as well as an important volume for those whose lives have been touched by polio.

Polio Voices: An Oral History from the American Polio Epidemics and Worldwide Eradication Efforts (The Praeger Series on Contemporary Health and Living) Incorporating many rare photographs--most never made public before--from the family albums of survivors who tell their stories in this volume, Harvard professor Julie Silver, M.D., and historian Daniel Wilson help readers understand the sheer terror that gripped parents of young children every spring and summer during the first half of the 20th century as polio epidemics ran rampant. Interviewed as part of the Polio Oral History Project directed by Silver and funded by Harvard, foundations, and private donors, the people featured in this book describe what is arguably the most feared scourge of modern times. Polio killed and maimed millions of Americans. Silver, Wilson, and their interviewees take us into homes and across time to understand the disease's effect on the family and the community. Testimonies are included from people who worked in polio wards, as well as from those involved in worldwide eradication efforts. The book also addresses the emergence of the polio and disability rights movement, the challenges of post-polio syndrome, and the state of polio research and developments today. And it explores the concern that polio could return in an even more vicious form as a result of bioterrorism. This work will be of interest to anyone intrigued by health and medical history; infectious disease and other epidemics; the psychological effects of disease on children, adults, and communities; politics in the Roosevelt era; and bioterrorism.

Recommended Books on Polio