History of Polio Timeline

Following the 1916 epidemics and having experienced little success in treating polio patients, researchers set out to find new and better treatments for the disease, launching decades of therapeutic experimentation.

Between 1917 and the early 1950s, several therapies were explored in an effort to prevent deformities, including hydrotherapy and electrotherapy, though results were often limited.

Some families received support through philanthropic organizations such as the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine fraternity, which established a network of pediatric hospitals in 1919, the Shriners Hospitals for Children, to provide care free of charge for children with polio.

Image source: Shriners Hospitals for Children

In 1926, Franklin Roosevelt, convinced of the benefits of hydrotherapy, bought a resort at Warm Springs, Georgia, where he founded the first modern rehabilitation center for treatment of polio patients, which still operates today.

Image source: Warm Springs Historic District

In treating polio cases in rural Australia between 1928 and 1940, Sister Elizabeth Kenny developed a form of physical therapy that—instead of immobilizing affected limbs—aimed to relieve pain and spasms through hot, moist packs and early activity and exercise to strengthen unaffected muscles and promote nerve cell recruitment.

Image source: Elizabeth Kenny

The first iron lung used in the treatment of polio was invented by Philip Drinker, Louis Agassiz Shaw, and James Wilson at Harvard, and tested October 12, 1928, at Children's Hospital, Boston, revolutionizing respiratory support for polio patients.

Image source: Iron lung

The Emerson Iron Lung, a widely used alternative to the Drinker respirator that helped polio patients breathe, remained in production until 1970, serving thousands of patients over four decades.

In 1940, Sister Elizabeth Kenny, an Australian bush nurse from Queensland, arrived in North America and challenged the prevailing approach of immobilizing polio patients, advocating her innovative regimen instead.

When the big polio epidemic hit Denmark in 1952, Blegdamshospitalet in Copenhagen had only one Emerson iron lung and some cuirass-type ventilators. Large numbers of bulbar polio patients were ventilated by hand ("bagged") by medical students and anyone else available due to the shortage of equipment.

Image source: Bjørn Aage Ibsen

The crisis in Copenhagen led Danish anesthesiologist Bjørn Aage Ibsen to invent the positive pressure ventilator in 1952, transforming the treatment of respiratory failure in polio patients.

Lessons from Copenhagen bore fruit in Stockholm in 1953 during the next European polio epidemic, when positive pressure ventilation techniques developed by Ibsen were successfully deployed to save lives.

Polio survivors were often at the forefront of the disability rights movement that emerged in the United States during the 1970s, pushing legislation such as the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which protected qualified individuals from discrimination based on disability, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Image source: Disability rights movement

In 1977, the National Health Interview Survey reported that there were 254,000 people living in the United States who had been paralyzed by polio, underscoring the lasting burden of the disease.

Image source: Post-polio syndrome

The World Health Organization estimated in 2001 that there were 10 to 20 million polio survivors worldwide, including some 40,000 survivors with varying degrees of paralysis living in Germany, 30,000 in Japan, 24,000 in France, 16,000 in Australia, 12,000 in Canada, and 12,000 in the United Kingdom.

In 2009, as part of the Q150 celebrations, the Kenny regimen for polio treatment was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for its role as an iconic "innovation and invention", recognizing Sister Kenny's enduring contribution to polio care.

By 2025, the majority of those polio survivors who need artificial respiration use positive pressure ventilators, reflecting the enduring legacy of Bjørn Ibsen's invention from the 1952 Copenhagen epidemic.

Image source: Positive airway pressure

In 1935 Maurice Brodie, a research assistant at New York University, and William Hallock Park of the New York City Department of Health attempted to produce a polio vaccine procured from virus in ground up monkey spinal cords killed by formaldehyde, though the effort proved unsuccessful.

Image source: Hilary Koprowski

In 1938 Franklin Roosevelt helped found the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now known as March of Dimes), which raised money for rehabilitation of people with paralytic polio and was instrumental in funding vaccine development.

Image source: March of Dimes

In 1950 William Hammon at the University of Pittsburgh isolated serum containing antibodies against poliovirus from the blood of polio survivors, opening a new path toward passive immunization against the disease.

The first successful demonstration of a polio vaccine was by Hilary Koprowski in 1950, using a live attenuated virus administered as an oral vaccine, paving the way for future oral vaccines.

Between September 1951 and July 1952 nearly 55,000 children were involved in a clinical trial of the anti-polio serum, one of the largest immunization studies conducted prior to the vaccine era.

Jonas Salk developed the first widely adopted polio vaccine, first testing it in 1952 using the HeLa cell line, marking a major breakthrough in the fight against polio.

Image source: Jonas Salk

Enders, Weller, and Robbins were recognized for their labors growing poliovirus in tissue culture with the Nobel Prize in 1954, work that made vaccine development possible.

Image source: John Franklin Enders

In 1954, the Salk vaccine was tested for its ability to prevent polio; its field trials grew to be the largest medical experiment in history, involving hundreds of thousands of children across the United States.

Image source: Polio vaccine

By 1955 the March of Dimes had invested $25.5 million in research, funding both Jonas Salk's and Albert Sabin's vaccine development, the 1954–55 field trials of the vaccine, and supplies of free vaccine for thousands of children.

On April 12, 1955, Jonas Salk announced to the world that his inactivated polio vaccine had proven safe and effective; later that year it was chosen for use throughout the United States, triggering mass immunization campaigns.

By 1957, following mass immunizations promoted by the March of Dimes, the annual number of polio cases in the United States was reduced from a peak of nearly 58,000 cases to 5,600 cases.

Human trials of Albert Sabin's oral polio vaccine began in 1957; the live attenuated vaccine offered easier administration and longer-lasting immunity, and was licensed in 1962.

Image source: Albert Sabin

Following the development of the oral polio vaccine, a second wave of mass immunizations led to a further decline: by 1961 only 161 cases were recorded in the United States.

The last cases of paralytic poliomyelitis caused by endemic transmission of poliovirus in the United States occurred in 1979, when an outbreak occurred among the Amish in several Midwestern states.

Image source: Polio eradication