Here David Oshinsky tells the gripping story of the polio terror and of the intense effort to find a cure, from the March of Dimes to the discovery of the Salk and Sabin vaccines--and beyond. Drawing on newly available papers of Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin and other key players, Oshinsky paints a suspenseful portrait of the race for the cure, weaving a dramatic tale centered on the furious rivalry between Salk and Sabin. He also tells the story of Isabel Morgan, perhaps the most talented of all polio researchers, who might have beaten Salk to the prize if she had not retired to raise a family.
Oshinsky offers an insightful look at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which was founded in the 1930s by FDR and Basil O'Connor, it revolutionized fundraising and the perception of disease in America. Oshinsky also shows how the polio experience revolutionized the way in which the government licensed and tested new drugs before allowing them on the market, and the way in which the legal system dealt with manufacturers' liability for unsafe products. Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, Oshinsky reveals that polio was never the raging epidemic portrayed by the media, but in truth a relatively uncommon disease. But in baby-booming America--increasingly suburban, family-oriented, and hygiene-obsessed--the specter of polio, like the specter of the atomic bomb, soon became a cloud of terror over daily life.
Both a gripping scientific suspense story and a provocative social and cultural history, Polio opens a fresh window onto postwar America.

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

Only in America:

This is one of the best books on the history of science I have ever read. I thought that the book was going to be a glowing tribute to an American technological advance but I was very wrong. The author, David Oshinsky, created a very evenly balanced story. Along with the successes, he points out the scare tactics used by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and its then-novel method of fund-raising. He is also critical of the method of vaccine distribution and attributes vaccine shortages to... more info

Haunting for those of us who remember...:

This is a very interesting work on a topic my generation remembers with dread. If you were one of tens of millions of schoolchildren who were lined up in a cafeteria to await a sugarcube with a little dot on it--you'll want to read this.

A Tale of Men and Microbes:

Microbes shaped our destiny since the precambrian era or earlier. Our DNA is the historical evidence.
We have not changed much genetically in the last couple of millennia, but we have had a rapid cultural evolution that enabled us to come up with virology as a medical science.
The book is a snapshot of American social and medical history around the middle of the last century. "There were no shopping malls or motel chains or felt-tip pens. Tobacco companies placed cigarette ads in medical... more info

Excellent History of the Era and the Disease:

I remember the polio scare when I was a kid in the fifties. This book is a very readable and entertaining history of the drive to discover a vaccine for the dread disease.
The politics, the scientific jealousies and the professional drive to succeed all are woven together. This reads like a triller, even though we know the eventual outcome.
I highly recommend this book. If you are interested in history, this is a detailed narrative of all the players. If you are also interested in the science,... more info

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