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Polio patients were most vulnerable in the acute stage,
when the virus was actively destroying the motor neurons that controlled
the muscles connected to swallowing, breathing, and limb movement.
Although there was, and is, no cure for polio, endangered lives could
be saved. Doctors and nurses used technology, experience, and vigilance
to keep patients alive until the infection ran its course, and recovery
began.
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The poliovirus can destroy up to 60 percent of the motor neurons (which
control muscle movement) before any symptoms of weakness or paralysis appear. |
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Before Sister Kenny brought her controversial massage, exercise, and
hot-pack treatment to the United States in 1940, the accepted treatment for
polio was to immobilize patients with rigid splints and casts. |
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“I left Providence Hospital in the spring of
1953, fully a year after the onset of my illness. It had become my home….
The Sisters, the nurses, the doctors, and the cleaning staff had become
my friends, and I was loathe to let them go…. It was a closed
safe little world.”
—Hugh G. Gallagher, 1998 |
Left: Silver tracheotomy tube (late 19th century) for
opening up the trachea (airway) through the neck; plastic trach tubes (1980s),
and 1866 tracheotome used to make the incision in the neck
Right: Hospital ward in Salt Lake City, Utah Courtesy of Dr. W. H. Groves
Latterday Saints Hospital, Salt Lake City, Utah
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Breathing
As with other
epidemic diseases, such as cholera and tuberculosis, polio brought fundamental
changes to medical practice. |
“Tracheotomy is a simple procedure; a
cut is made through the trachea below the vocal cords and a silver
breathing tube three inches long is inserted into the trachea. It extends
directly to the lungs. By attaching a line from an oxygen tank directly
to the trachea tube, the lungs are supplied with fresh oxygen without
passing through the rather long passages of the nostrils and trachea
clogged with fluids.”
—Hugh G. Gallagher, 1998 |
Left: Modified vacuum cleaner and the cuirass, or portable respirator, that it pumped
Right: Child using cuirass respirator, 1950s Courtesy of Edna Hindson and Julie Silver
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“The chest respirator … is
a plastic affair that is strapped tightly over the chest and is operated
by a motor; its action creates a vacuum which causes the chest to expand
so that more air is drawn into the lungs.”
—Jim Marugg, 1954 |
