Living with Polio: The Epidemic and Its Survivors

Wilson's book was one of my most valuable resources when I was researching my own book, LOVE, WAR & POLIO. It is chock full of important historical information on the periodic polio epidemics that swept the country in the first half of the twentieth century, as well as information on how the disease was treated and how patients were housed - often "warehoused" - and how they and their families coped or failed to. My only complaint - more of a disappointment really - was that there was very little personal information from Wilson, about his own struggles with polio, as a child and an adult. But make no mistake. This is an extremely well researched and an important document on a once-terrifying disease.

This book is well written, as you would expect from a professor of medical history. The author's experience with polio makes this more than a historical exercise, it is a very personal journey. It brought back my memories of cold, itchy "hot packs", the love-hate relationship with our P/Ts. This book brought a tear to my eyes. It brought back memories of pain but also of victories. Every relative of a polio survivor should read this, to understand where we came from and where we are. Tom

As a person born after the invention of the polio vaccines, polio was not the scourge of my childhood, in fact, I knew practically nothing about the disease until reading this book. "Living with Polio" tell relates the stories of people who contacted polio and their struggles with infection and polio treatments, their triumphs in life and love, and their experiences with PPS (Post-Polio Syndrome). No detail of these experiences is spared and a true and clear picture emerges of what it must have been like to live with this disease. Of particular interest to me, a student of human sexuality education, was the inclusion by the author of the survivors sexuality. Although stricken with polio, these people did not loose their sexuality when paralysis set in and it was very refreshing to see that aspect of the experience included. "Living with polio" was not only an informative read, it was a well written and engaging one. Highly Recommended!

Dr. Wilson has written an illuminating history of American attitudes towards polio, and how over the years it has been the polio victims themselves who have made strides on behalf of disabled people everywhere. They did not depend on others, they went ahead and did it themselves. Wilson's book is both depressing and inspiring, but it is never dull and it is one of the best books of the season. I guess "victims" is the wrong word; that dates me back to the time when polio was the scariest thing in a Cold War childhood, and the scares were everywhere: "don't got swimming," "don't go to the movies," "avoid that crippled boy for he might have the virus." Then in the mid-50s Dr. Salk's vaccine put polio in the past for most of us, for the lucky ones who were spared, but huge numbers of children all around the world had been affected and have been "living with polio" for the past fifty years. Ironically, a large percentage of these have been stricken with so called "post polio syndrome," a further debilitation that might ensue twenty, thirty, or forty years after the original outbreak, and these poor souls are faced with trying to convince young doctors that they are sick all over again, and it is the case with many doctors that you might be a neurologist and very sharp in your field but you might not ever have faced an active case of polio, so you're going to be 100 per cent useless in the case of PPS. Many patients report having to talk themselves blue in the face trying to convince the mindless MDs that their symptoms were not "all in their heads." Wilson gathers the testimony of dozens of survivors. They are the bravest bunch of people you'll read about all year. No matter what their trials and tribulations, they needed bravery to survive the tears of intolerance, of reduced or eliminated movement, and the ignorant Western policy of non-accommodation so that for many children with polio, they were actively discouraged from attending school or even from going to a dance or on a date. It sounds crazy, but Wilson presents case after case of human beings whose lives were thwarted by social policy, not to mention a biological disaster. And yet there is room for laughter in these stories, and hope too. Wilson is not only a skilled writer and sociologist but his book is sort of autobiographical too, for he is one of the polio survivors, and too he is coping with PPS right now. The pictures, photos and illustrations are all top-notch. You will find this book works in two ways, as an account of physical difficulty, and as well, it is a guidebook on a spiritual journey towards completion and the whole.