A Summer Plague

Polio - often called the 'summer plague' - struck hundreds of thousands of children around the world between its emergence as an epidemic disease in 1916 to its cure in the 1950s. Today, images of children with crutches and leg braces or encased to their necks in iron lungs may be little more than a painful memory. Yet during its height the disease induced panic on a scale reminiscent of the great plagues of history. This book is a account of the century's polio epidemics. Interweaving biographical, political, social, and medical history, Tony Gould traces the rise and fall of the epidemics and describes the individuals who were influential in its treatment and conquest.