8.3 Firsthand and Secondhand Accounts

Last updated over 4 years ago

7 questions

Reread "Introduction to Polio" and "The Diagnosis" from Small Steps. Describe how the two readings support each of the facts about polio listed in the first columns. 

"Introduction to Polio" is reprinted at the bottom of the page.  "The Diagnosis" is in your online reading book. 

What details from "Introduction to Polio" support the fact that one symptom of polio is flu-like symptoms?

What details from "The Diagnosis" support the fact that one symptom of polio is flu-like symptoms?

What details from "Introduction to Polio" support the fact that polio can cause muscle weakness and paralysis?

What details from "The Diagnosis" support the fact that polio can cause muscle weakness and paralysis?

What details from "Introduction to Polio" support the fact that polio is highly contagious, so people with polio must be kept away from those they might infect?

What details from "The Diagnosis" support the fact that polio is highly contagious, so people with polio must be kept away from those they might infect?

What is different about the way the firsthand account and the secondhand account support the main ideas?

Introduction to Polio

Polio is a serious and contagious illness caused by a virus. The polio virus spreads through contact with feces or less commonly, being coughed or sneezed on. Most people infected with the virus have no symptoms. For others it results in flu-like symptoms such as fever, sore throat, nausea, headache, and tiredness. But when the polio virus affects the brain and spinal cord it is very serious and can cause severe symptoms, including muscle weakness and paralysis, which may be temporary or permanent. While polio can infect anyone, it mostly affects children.

Stories and drawings from as early as the year 1500 BCE suggest that people have gotten sick with polio for a long time. In 1789 British physician Michael Underwood published the first description of polio in medical literature, and in 1840 a German doctor named it: “infantile paralysis.”

Polio epidemics increased in the late 1800s, and polio epidemics occurred regularly in the United States throughout the first half of the 20th century. Because polio is so contagious, these epidemics were very frightening, and communities treated the threat very seriously. Swimming pools closed, and children were not allowed in other public gathering places, such as movie theaters. In the summer, when polio epidemics were most likely to occur, some parents kept their children indoors or made them wear gloves.

One of the most famous polio patients was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In 1921, when he was 39 years old and already an important politician, he developed polio. Although he recovered, and worked hard on rehabilitation, his legs were permanently paralyzed. Even so, he was elected president in 1932 and led the United States through the Great Depression and much of World War II. During his presidency he created the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, later called the March of Dimes, which raised money to help polio patients and to research a vaccine or cure for polio.

The March of Dimes funded research by two main scientists. Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Albert Sabin were both working on inventing vaccines, but using different approaches. Dr. Salk’s vaccine was ready first in 1953. He was so sure of his vaccine that he started by testing it on himself and his family. Some of his lab workers also chose to have it tested on themselves. The results were promising. No one got sick, and everyone developed polio antibodies.

In 1954 Dr. Salk and his researchers vaccinated almost two million healthy school children. A year later the results were in: the vaccine worked! Over the next two years polio rates in the United States fell over 80%. Soon after, in 1959, Dr. Albert Sabin’s version of the vaccine was also proven safe and effective.

Both Dr. Salk and Dr. Sabin chose to make the details of their research and how to manufacture their vaccines public. If they had chosen to keep it secret, they might have made a lot of money selling their vaccines, but they decided it was important to share so that the vaccines could be produced and distributed as quickly and inexpensively as possible.

Today, thanks to vaccination, polio has been eliminated in the Western hemisphere, which includes the United States, Mexico, Canada, Europe and South and Central America. While polio is still present in a few countries, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria, programs dedicated to vaccination are working hard to wipe out polio worldwide.