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... The first reported case of poliomyelitis, also known as polio, was depicted in a thirty-five hundred year old Egyptian bas relief. ... Another early case of polio was reported by a Greek physician named Hippocrates and his Roman assistant, Galen. ... Their description of the symptoms clearly suggested that the man had polio. Many other small outbreaks occurred over the centuries, but none was as severe to American life as the polio epidemic of 1916.
The polio epidemic of 1916 was very devastating in America. ... Polio was known as Infantile Paralysis at the time because it struck children more often than adults. ... This was the largest epidemic of polio to ever strike the United States. Most doctors were puzzled by the symptoms of polio. ...
Scientists would soon discover that polio is a disease caused by a virus that enters the digestive system, makes its way into the blood stream, and into the nervous system where it attacks the motor nerve cells that send messages from the brain to the muscles of the body. The polio virus stops the messages, which causes the muscles to go dead. Further research would find that polio had two forms of paralysis: paralysis of the lower extremities of the body, known as spinal polio, and paralysis of the breathing muscles in the larynx and pharynx, known as bulbar polio. The latter, bulbar polio, required an apparatus called the iron lung to help polio patients breathe. The iron lung was a bulky, tubular shaped machine in which bulbar polio patients were placed to help them breathe. ...
Not long before the epidemic of 1916, scientists began searching for a cure. In 1908, two Viennese scientists found that the cause of polio was a virus. ... They inoculated crushed spinal cord material from a nine year old boy who had died from polio into the stomachs of two monkeys. The monkeys developed polio within seventeen days. ...
Another event that greatly impacted the way Americans felt about polio was when Franklin D. ... This event had such a great impact on Americans because it proved that polio had no boundaries; it struck young and old, black and white, rich and poor. ... Peabody told Roosevelt a story of how a paralyzed young man, who had polio and was confined to a wheelchair, had regained enough strength to walk with only the assistance of canes. ...
Many polio patients read articles about Roosevelt at Warm Springs and were interested in finding a relief for their sickness, so they came to Warm Springs to get relief. ... The Meriwether Inn severely needed funds to maintain the care-giving it was providing for many polio patients. ...
Running a treatment center for polio patients was not cheap, especially during the Great Depression of the early 1930’s, thus Roosevelt and his partner O’Connor concentrated their efforts on fund-raising. ... In 1934, Roosevelt and O’Connor created the Birthday Ball Commission, created to raise money for polio research and spread the money to scientists who were conducting research on polio.
Approximate Word count = 2442
Approximate Pages = 9.8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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