“IF we have a fine summer this year,” Glasgow’s chief medical officer, Dr William Horne, cautioned at the end of March, 1959, “polio will return.”

Dr Horne was speaking as the city’s Lord Provost, Myer Galpern, launched its second poliomyelitis vaccination campaign at a child clinic in Maryhill. The aim was to safeguard all children under 15 before the danger period during the summer.

In America, where polio epidemics had killed or disabled thousands of children or young adults in the 1950s, there had been widespread celebrations when, in 1955, it was announced that Jonas Salk and his team had, after successful clinical trials, devised a vaccine that could defeat the dreaded poliomyelitis.

In 1959, in Glasgow, the Public Health department had already vaccinated 180,000 children, and was now turning its attention to secondary-school pupils.

Dr Horne said that if they could get a 100 per cent vaccination, especially in the younger age-groups, polio could be banished altogether. Children should be registered as quickly as possible because there was a great risk of polio in a fine summer.

Mr Galpern, who watched some of the vaccinations, said the department wasn’t “scaremongering” about summer. Polio crippled children, he said, and the tragedy was that it was so unnecessary now that there were adequate supplies of vaccine. The vaccination, he added, was simple, left no scar, and had no after-effects.