Braces, wheelchairs, and iron lungs: The paralyzed body and the machinery of rehabilitation in the polio epidemics

Journal of Medical Humanities

Volumn 26, Issue 2-3, 2005, Pages 173-190

  Wilson, Daniel J ^a  

^a MUHLENBERG COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

"Crippled children; "; Assistive devices; Braces; Disability; Epidemics; Fundraising; Iron lungs; March of Dimes; Paralysis; Polio; Postpolio; Rehabilitation; Stigma; Wheelchairs

Indexed keywords

OXYGEN;

ARTICLE; ARTIFICIAL VENTILATION; AWARENESS; BODY IMAGE; BRACE; BREATHING; DOCTOR PATIENT RELATION; EPIDEMIC; FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT; HUMAN; INFANT; JOINT MOBILITY; PHYSICAL DISABILITY; POLIOMYELITIS; PREVALENCE; PUBLIC RELATIONS; RESPIRATORY AIRFLOW; SURVIVAL; WHEELCHAIR;

ADVERTISING; BRACES; CHILD; DISABLED CHILDREN; DISEASE OUTBREAKS; EMOTIONS; FEAR; FUND RAISING; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANISM; HUMANS; PARALYSIS; POLIOMYELITIS; REHABILITATION; RESPIRATION, ARTIFICIAL; SURVIVORS; WHEELCHAIRS;

EID: 19444366067     PISSN: 10413545     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10912-005-2917-z     Document Type: Article

References (55)

1. Annie Dillard, An American Childhood (New York: Harper&Row, Perennial Library, 1987), 167.
2. Paul K. Longmore, "Conspicuous Contribution and American Cultural Dilemmas: Telethon Rituals of Cleansing and Renewal," in The Body and Physical Difference: Discourses of Disability, eds. David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 154.
3. Jane S. Smith, Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1990), 83. Smith also reproduces several March of Dimes posters following pages 128 and 256. Subsequent references are cited parenthetically in the text.
4. See also Nina Gilden Seavey, Jane S. Smith, and Paul Wagner, A Paralyzing Fear: The Triumph over Polio in America (New York: TV Books, 1998), which draws many of its numerous photographs of polio patients and survivors from the files of the March of Dimes.
5. Two relatively recent videotapes include substantial excerpts from newsreel coverage of the polio epidemics: A Paralyzing Fear: The Story of Polio in America, produced by Nina Gilden Seavey and Paul Wagner, directed by Nina Gilden Seavey, PBS Home Video, 1998 and
6. A Fight to the Finish: Stories of Polio, produced by Ken Mandel and Dr. Tony Herring, directed by Ken Mandel, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children and Ken Mandel Productions, 1999.
7. For a discussion of the role of the film industry's support of the campaign against polio in the 1940s, see Douglas Gomery, "Two Documents: Your Priceless Gift and The 1946 Film Daily Yearbook," Historical Journal of Film, Radio&Television 15 (March 1995): 125-136.
8. Kathryn Black, In the Shadow of Polio: A Personal and Social History (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1996), 42-47.
9. Smith, Patenting the Sun, 83-84.
10. Fred Davis, Passage Through Crisis: Polio Victims and Their Families (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1963.
11. reprint, with a new introduction by Fred Davis, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1991), 5-6
12. Elizabeth P. Rice, "The Families of Children with Poliomyelitis," Poliomyelitis: Papers and Discussions Presented at the First International Poiomyelitis Conference (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1949), 308. Subsequent references to Davis and Rice are cited parenthetically in the text.
13. Edward Le Comte, The Long Road Back: The Story of My Encounter with Polio (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957), 33. Subsequent references are cited parenthetically in the text.
14. Anne Walters and Jim Marugg, Beyond Endurance (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1954), 130.
15. Peg Kehret, Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio (Morton Grove, IL: Albert Whitman&Company, 1996), 15-16. Subsequent references are cited parenthetically in the text.
16. James M. Liston, "My Wife's a 'Polio,"' Better Homes and Gardens, 29 (July 1951): 50.
17. Regina Woods, Tales from Inside the Iron Lung: And How I Got Out of It (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 3. Subsequent references are cited parenthetically in the text.
18. See, for example, Maxine Davis, "Good Housekeeping's Home Chart for Infantile Paralysis," Good Housekeeping, 113 (August 1941): 40-41. Subsequent references are cited parenthetically in the text.
19. Hugh Gregory Gallagher, Black Bird Fly Away: Disabled in an Able-Bodied World (Arlington, VA: Vandamere Press, 1998), 8, 28, 54.
20. On the history of the iron lung, see David J.Rothman, Beginnings Count: The Technological Imperative in American Health Care (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 42-66. Subsequent references are cited parenthetically in the text.
21. See also Philip A. Drinker and Charles F. McKhann, III, "Landmark Perspective: The Iron Lung. First Practical Means of Respiratory Support," JAMA, 225 (1986), 1476-1480.
22. See also Leonard Hawkins with Milton Lomask, The Man in the Iron Lung (New York: Doubleday&Company, 1956).
23. Linda Atkins, Jamaica and Me: The Story of an Unusual Friendship (New York: Random House, 1998), xi.
24. Marie Latta, "Personal Story", Memories: A Tribute to Polio Survivors (Atlanta, GA: Atlanta Post-Polio Association, 1997), 43. For a similar reaction,
25. see Kathryn Vastyshak, interview author, Allentown, PA, June 25, 2002.
26. On the challenges of caring for patients in iron lungs, see Lynne M. Dunphy, "'The Steel Cocoon': Tales of the Nurses and Patients of the Iron Lung, 1929-1955," Nursing History Review, 9 (2001): 3-33.
27. See also Sima Gibel, interview by Marcy Schwartz, North Miami Beach, FL, July 15, 1999. I want to thank Lynne Dunphy for making a transcript available to me. The necessity for speed in placing patients in iron lungs is emphasized in Nursing for the Poliomyelitis Patient (New York: Joint Orthopedic Nursing Advisory Service of the National Organization for Public Health Nursing and the National League of Nursing Education, 1948), 50.
28. Allen V. Lee, as told to Melva Rorem, My Soul More Bent (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1948), 14. Subsequent references are cited parenthetically in the text.
29. Larry Alexander, as told to Adam Barnett, The Iron Cradle (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1954), 17, 19.
30. Louis Sternburg and Dorothy Sternburg with Monica Dickens, View from the Seesaw (New York: Dodd, Mead&Company, 1986), 21.
31. Kenneth Kingery, As I Live and Breathe (New York: Grosset&Dunlap, 1966), 39.
32. Arnold Beisser, Flying Without Wings: Personal Reflections on Loss, Disability, and Healing (New York: Bantam Books, 1988), 17-18.
33. See also Ann Walters and Jim Marugg, Beyond Endurance (New York: Harper &Brothers, Publishers, 1954), 54-57. Subsequent references are cited parenthetically in the text.
34. Management of Poliomyelitis Patients with Respiratory Difficulty (New York: The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, n.d.), 18-19
35. Nursing for the Poliomyelitis Patient, 59.
36. Kenneth Kingery, As I Live and Breathe (New York: Grosset&Dunlap, 1966), 49-51.
37. Not everyone, however, saw braces as a sign of progress; see H. A. Robinson, J. E. Finesinger, and J. S. Berman, "Psychiatric Considerations in the Adjustment of Patients with Poliomyelitis," New England Journal of Medicine, 254 (1956): 975-976.
38. Joseph S. Barr, "The Management of Poliomyelitis: The Late Stage," in Poliomyelitis: Papers and Discussions Presented at the First International Poliomyelitis Conference (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1949), 210.
39. Robert Lovering, Out of the Darkness: Coping with Disability (Phoenix, AZ: Associated Rehabilitation Counseling Specialists, 1993), 65. Subsequent references are cited parenthetically in the text.
40. Leonard Kriegel, Flying Solo: Reimagining Manhood, Courage, and Loss (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998), 40.
41. Leonard Kriegel, The Long Walk Home (New York: Appleton-Century, 1964), 52, 92.
42. Lorenzo W. Milam, The Cripple Liberation Front Marching Band Blues (San Diego, CA: Mho&Mho Works, 1984), 76.
43. For examples see, Gail Bias, Len Jordan, and Millie Teders in Edmund J. Sass, with George Gottfried and Anthony Sorem, Polo's Legacy: An Oral History (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1996), 80, 128-129, 195;
44. and Clara Yelder in Seavey, Smith and Wagner, A Paralyzing Fear, 154. Subsequent references are cited parenthetically in the text.
45. Robert F. Hall, Through the Storm: A Polio Story (St. Cloud, MN: North Star Press, 1990), 85-86.
46. Jan Little, If It Weren't for the Honor - I'd Rather Have Walked: Previously Untold Tales of the Journey to the ADA (Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books, 1996), 10. Subsequent references are cited parenthetically in the text.
47. David G. Oakley, at polioμaelstrom.stjohns.edu.; e-mail message to author, September 9, 1998.
48. Joyce Ann Tepley, "Polio Memories from the Class of 1952 and Maturing with Polio," in Managing Post-Polio: A Guide to Living Well with Post-Polio Syndrome, eds. Lauro S. Halstead and Naomi Naierman (Washington, DC: NRH Press, 1998), 197.
49. Charles L. Mee, A Nearly Normal Life: A Memoir (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1999), 124.
50. Jeraldine, e-mail to author (from polioμaelstrom.stjohns.edu), April 12, 1995.
51. Paul Reitmeir, interview by author, August 2, 2002, Bethlehem, PA.
52. Lauro S. Halstead, "New Health Problems in Persons with Polio," in Managing Post-Polio, 27-53;
53. and Julie K. Silver, Post-Polio: A Guide for Polio Survivors and Their Families (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 12-20. Subsequent references are cited parenthetically in the text.
54. Doris Staats, "We Have Choices", in Managing Post-Polio, 203.
55. Hugh Gregory Gallagher, "From Manual to Electric: A Transition", in Managing Post-Polio, 205.