“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.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here