Barriers in Polio
Poliomyelitis or Polio for short is a disease that paralyzes part of body typically affecting children under the age of five. But during the polio epidemic that lasted from about 1916 to around 1662 polio affected all U.S citizens from children to the president.
IDr. Jonas Salk giving a vaccine shot to a boy
"Jonas Salk Inoculates Boy." In American History, ABC-CLIO, 2019.
The polio epidemic that lasted from 1916 to 1962 was the time when the highest number of polio cases were recorded in the US. Around 1955 there were around 45,000 cases of polio in the U.S alone. Numbers were historically shattering in 1959 when over 50,000 cases of polio were recorded in the US. Truly an epidemic. Numbers would not rise again until 2009 when globally 180 cases were prevalent but nothing compared to the epidemic of the 20th century.
Barriers in vaccines
Vaccines are a fairly new development. Only becoming available in the late 1700s and only became popular around 1920 when Pertussis started affecting the people of America. Before Dr. Salk people used bacteria or parts of a diseased person to strengthen the immune system. The first vaccine was developed in 1776 to combat cowpox. In this instance they used a piece of skin with cowpox on it to build up immunity to the disease. Between 1890 and 1950 people used a type of bacterial vaccine like the Bacillis-Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination, which is still used today. Dr. Jonas Salk and his polio vaccine was the first to use an actually virus to fight a disease. After his inactivated vaccine was released to the public it influenced other researchers to develop a live virus vaccine which is what we still use today.