Reference no: EM133449197

The biggest news story of many a peace-time year broke this week on the tenth anniversary of Roosevelt's death. Nothing short of the overthrow of theCommunist regime in the Soviet Union could bring such rejoicing to the hearths and homes of America as the historic announcement last Tuesday thatthe 166-year war against paralytic poliomyelitis is almost certainly at an end.The story has blanketed the front pages of all the papers I have seen along a 1,600-mile route from New York to Saint Louis, to Memphis and Dallas.The name of Dr Jonas Salk, a young Pittsburgh scientist who developed the conquering vaccine, clangs like the church bells on VE-Day. A Congressmanfrom New York got up on the floor of the House on Wednesday to propose a Congressional medal for Dr Salk. The congratulations flow in fromcelebrated epidemiologists in Stockholm, Paris and Tokyo. The most conservative public health experts here, awaiting only the courtesy confirmation oftheir own state tests, are willing to allow that the name of Jonas Salk may now take its rightful place besides those of Ehrlich, Banting, and Fleming.Today all the papers I have been able to lay hands on published between New England and the Gulf States have printed front page photographs ofconsignments of the vaccine arriving at the nearest big city airport. Their enterprise is well taken. For after the moment of rejoicing the first thought ofthe parents is how soon their own children may receive an injection. It is to be given in three shots, the first two a fortnight or a month apart, the thirdseven months later. Dr Salk announced at Ann Arbor, in his account of the vaccine's action, that after much trial and error this was the most effectiveinterval in which to flood the bloodstream with protective antibodies. He promised that if this procedure was followed, his 1955 vaccine would better theperformance of last year's mass test, in which 90 percent of the children vaccinated in vulnerable or epidemic areas remained immune.The most heartening reward for the ordinary American parent is the fact that this is the first epidemic disease to be conquered by research financedentirely by public funds. The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was founded in 1933 at the suggestion of President Roosevelt to recruit volunteerworkers, to raise funds, and to direct research. It is sustained by its annual campaign for a March of Dimes, which falls appropriately, and nowtriumphantly, on the birthday of the first President to bear his great office with one-half of his body withered by this old disease.

Question: Imagine that you were a parent in the 1950's what feelings would you have before the vaccine? after?