1/n New, sixth, #polio history thread, continuing on from the last (fifth) thread, linked here. It's going to be difficult to get over to y'all just how much polio was absolutely feared, in the 20th century, and only in the 20th century.
https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1474417102228533262
2/n It's often said, around the net, that "a 1952 survey found that Americans feared only nuclear annihilation more than polio" (I can't find any original source for this). Polio was indeed the *most* feared disease in the USA in the 20th century; nothing else comes near.
3/n Impossible to say without very good, well-constructed polling from the time. Most fear may have been parents for their children, but only after 1940; as we shall see, wide-spread terror came after the 1916 outbreak, the very first mass epidemic.
https://twitter.com/unbearablefacts/status/1475467882762964996
4/n Before we get to the very first mass epidemic of #polio, 1916, it's important to note polio was known — for at least 3,400 years — & feared since 1893 in the States. **And no-one knew how it was transmitted**. The fine for breaking quarantine, below, in 1909 = >$2,800 today 
5/n Plague measures are known since man went agricultural & semi-urban. Humans know, even if they pretend not to, how to deal with epidemics. ***But none of all the tried-and-true measures*** stopped polio at all. In 1916, it would show that across the USA, especially in NYC
6/n In 1916 came the very first ever mass epidemic of #polio. Pretty good/odd going for a disease known for over 3,400 years long. >>27,000 cases of polio were reported across the USA, >>6,000 deaths, all in that year, in a population of 100 million.
7/n The 1916 epidemic hit NYC the hardest. Out of a population of >5,270,000, >9,000 cases were reported. Most were 2-year-olds. Death-rate (CFR) was 27% (❗️), of which 83% were under 5, & only 2.5% were over 16. But it hit #Billings, Montana, too (photo)
https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1475481007814025228
8/ Every try at containment was made. They all failed. Children were taken forcibly from their parents for quarantine. In 1916 NYC, 4 million gallons of water were used to wash the streets daily; 350~450 cats & dogs, suspected of being vectors, were killed daily. Nothing helped.
9/ #Polio was ODD. No quarantine at all stopped it. No hygiene then known helped. The then very suburban Staten Island was proportionately hit much worse than crowded Manhattan & Brooklyn, filled with recent, poor immigrants who were blamed for the epidemic — but hit less by it.
10/ The 1952 #polio epidemic in the USA was the worst. Out of a population of 156 million, 58,000 cases were reported, 3,145 deaths, & 21,269 were left w/ permanent mild or severe paralysis. The CFR had become "only" 5.4%, rather than 27% in 1916 NYC, but that was cold comfort.
11/ Mosquitoes & flies were blamed, but by the 1950's, they knew those weren't vectors. Poor immigrants were blamed; but in retrospect it's clear epidemic polio was a disease of comparative wealth, a developed nations' epidemic. Nations with good sewers.
https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1474371361447555073
12/ In the 1916 epidemic, police in Hoboken, NJ, stopped ferry travelers arriving from Brooklyn, & forcibly escorted them back to Brooklyn. A relationship between the stable-fly & #polio was mooted, & acted upon; it didn't help. Children under 16 were banned from public places.
13/ Black Americans were blamed in 1916; but the NYC Health Dept. actually investigated, & found they had proportionately *less* polio cases. The ones at highest risk were found to be blond WASPs. 50,000 children were evacuated out of NYC by their parents.
14/ In 1916, a mob of 500 vigilantes in Huntington, Long Island, forcibly entered every home, searching for signs of #polio. Residents of Glen Cove, Long Island, threatened to murder the public-health officer, & to burn down the hospital, after it received a few polio patients
15/ Unbenown to anyone, the cause of #polio had already been discovered, & the vital first steps towards isolation + vaccines had been taken in 1908, by Karl Landsteiner, in Vienna, Austria. That was only 16 years after viruses had been discovered at all! [in 1892]
17/ Ironically, in view of the 1916 epidemic & total ignorance of how polio evaded all quarantines, Carl Kling, in Sweden, had already built upon Karl Landsteiner's work, & discovered how #polio is transmitted, in 1911. Polio mainly got access to the body through the throat & gut
18/ Carl Kling not only found the main mode of #polio transmission, he also showed some people carried the polio virus **asymptomatically**, meaning anyone could be a Typhoid Mary without knowing it at all. All that in 1911. Five years before 1916.
https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1475549108001771521
19/ Of course, medical advances are often only as good as your globalism 😜 I mean global cooperation is. No-one in the States had any idea of Carl Kling's work in Sweden. So they killed all the dogs & cats in NYC, & washed the streets, & it didn't help
https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1475550265235365894
@threadreaderapp unroll please
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
