Williams, Alexyss. Book Review of Polio:An American Story. By David M. Oshinsky. Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005. In David M. Oshinsky’s Polio:An American Story, he intriguingly writes history of a medical mystery. How this disease was discovered, who was first diagnosed, and then onto how the vaccination was created. He gives fascinating details about the sickness, its history, the medicine that was put on trial, the pain, the politics, and the people who fought to eradicate it. The processes scientist went through such as the research, the small discoveries, and the commencement of Polio all lead to the effective vaccine. The author takes us into the time where polio was dominate, and where heart break came every summer. Poliomyelitis, often shortened to Polio, is a highly infectious viral disease that enters the body system through direct person-to-person contact, contact with infected mucus or phlegm from the nose or mouth, or contact with infected feces. It then travels along the nerve pathways, and finally into the spinal cord causing partial or full paralysis. It mostly affected …show more content…
Roosevelt. How he was stricken with polio, and how Dr. William Keen billed the family $600 for a house visit and recommended deep massage and exercise, “the worst possible treatment”, Oshinsky explains. A few days later he had lost all movement below his waist. The author covers how F.D.R.’s campaign managers convinced the press to not take photos of him in a wheelchair, and how by the end of the 1932 election the American people did not care about the wheelchair they only cared about the economy, which is logical given the circumstances of the Great Depression. The book also suggests that it was because an American President became stricken with Polio that it took the stigmatism out of it having it and put urgency into curing it. FDR became a great crusader for curing the dreaded