What Can You Buy for a Dime?

 I wonder how many people know who’s face adorns the United States ten cent coin.  And further, I wonder how many know why.

Polio

or

Poliomyelitis

 Although outbreaks had happened since the middle of the 19th century, it was not until 1916 that it became serious enough to give it a name. The first devastating outbreak of polio in the United States was in the summer of 1916. It started in New York City and spread to other states, striking mostly children. The cause of the outbreak was totally unknown. It began with a few cases in June, and by August almost 9,000 people been stricken with the ravaging sickness. The epidemic spread eventually covering 26 states, causing 6,000 deaths out of of some 27,000 cases. It lasted approximately six months.

  Because most of the victims were less than five years old, the disease was called Infantile Paralysis but it’s scientific name is Poliomyelitis, which means inflammation of the anterior spinal cord.

  Most of the victims of the outbreak survived, but many had withered limbs, for which there was no acceptable treatment or therapy. there were few facilities for the care of these people, and since the cause of the disease was not known, people stricken by it were subject to prejudice that through bad hygiene practices, they had brought it on themselves.

  Many outbreaks of polio followed the 1916 epidemic, devastating thousands. Though most of polio’s victims were young children, it also struck grownups.

  In 1921 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, former Under-Secretary of the Navy, one-time Democratic vice-presidential candidate, and one of the leading lights of the Democratic party, became ill. On August 10 he went to bed fatigued. Two days later, his legs were paralyzed. His doctors said he had polio, and he never walked unassisted again.

  Roosevelt spent the next seven years trying to cure his paralysis. He was a wealthy and influential man, and he used his money on all the available treatments, from massage to stimulation with electrical currents.

  In 1924 Roosevelt visited a spa in Georgia called Warm Springs to bathe in its naturally warm waters. The waters actually did nothing to cure the paralysis , but he was able to exercise his other muscles in the water so that he could support himself on crutches or on someone’s arm. He bought Warm Springs in 1926, spending what was estimated as half his personal fortune to do so.

  Two years later he ran for governor of New York, and in 1932 he was elected to his first term as president.

  He helped to found the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis in 1938– Now known and still operating today as the March of Dimes.

The March of Dimes began as an organization to combat polio. The sickness caused an inflammation of the spinal cord that could leave its victims unable to move arms, legs, or even lungs.

  For its first 17 years, the March of Dimes provided support for polio researchers. During the years after World War II , the number of polio cases in the United States increased sharply, making the cause even more urgent. Then, on April 12, 1955 the Poliomyelitis Vaccine Evaluation Center at the University of Michigan held a news conference at which it was announced to the world that the polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk was “safe, potent, and effective.”

The largest clinical trial in the history of the United States, involving 1.8 million schoolchildren, had shown the vaccine to be 80 to 90 percent effective in preventing paralytic polio.