Imagine public swimming pools closed in the middle of summer; imagine children being kept close to home out of fear of contracting such a disease.
Imagine a hospital ward filled with iron lungs, each one a large tank holding all but the head of a child or a young adult unable to breathe alone.
Thankfully, such images are now limited to our imagination, to history books and to a few developing countries.
Thankfully, through the work of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, now known as the March of Dimes, the scourge of polio has been stopped in the United States.
The generation that today remembers going to a gym for a sugar cube carrying the vaccine got to raise its own children without having to worry about polio.
The March of Dimes traces its history, and its success, to the most famous victim of polio, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR contracted the disease as an adult, the year after he was the unsuccessful vice presidential candidate for the Democratic Party.
Roosevelt fought the disease, taking the waters at Warm Springs, Ga., which was considered to be beneficial to polio victims. He eventually continued his political career while hiding his disability, then served as president during the Depression and World War II.
In 1938, he established the National Foundation, which was informally known as the "March of Dimes," because comedian Eddie Cantor urged people to send their dimes directly to the White House.
The March of Dimes provided funding for research into treatment and preventing polio. The first big breakthrough was in 1954, with nationwide testing of the vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk. The test involved two million children at a cost of $5 million.
The oral vaccine developed by Dr. Albert Sabin was approved in 1962, and by 1964 only 121 cases of polio were reported, down from the 20,000 average in the years just after World War II.
And the work was done, in large part, because a private charity mobilized a nation, raised awareness and raised millions of dollars, much of it literally a dime at a time.
After helping to beat polio, the March of Dimes continues to work to help children, funding research to help infants with birth defects or who were premature.
The march continues. The local organization's big project is the WalkAmerica walkathon set for Sept. 13 at Tucker Coliseum.
Join the March, by walking or by contributing. Some of us owe each breath to this organization.
- Phillip W. Lamb