General Chat

The Google Doodle on my Canadian site is celebrating the 100th birthday of Jonas Salk, of polio vaccine fame.

which brought back memories!

I must have been among the first lot of British children to get the vaccine ............... it must have been about 1956/57, and we had to go to an area just beside the Town Hall where they had set up tables in the open, and all the kids and teenagers had to line up.

I remember we had 2 vaccinations and then the 3rd was the sugar cube with the Sabin vaccine

I can't remember the intervals between each vaccination and then the sugar cube


The Sabin vaccine was slightly different form the Salk vaccine and was considered safer




Does anyone else remember the Salk vaccine and the rush to get vaccinated?

I can't remeber when but I remember having the injections, and not being able to swim in the sea off a certain beach where several people were said to have caught polio. Also knew a young girl who wore leg urons and I was told by mum thst she'd had polio.

I do remember getting the vaccination.

Didn't know about who had developed it though until this year when
we visited the Salk Institute this year on our visit to San Diego.
The building was designed by Louis Khan.

AnnG ....................

I think most of us at least knew of someone who was crippled or in an iron lung, and the panics when there was an outbreak



I guess I've always known about the Salk and Sabin vaccines ............. they were a topic taught in biology from about 1957 on


Salk developed an injected dose of inactivated (dead) poliovirus. Albert Sabin developed an oral vaccine using attenuated poliovirus.

I was among the first adults to get it as I was in the Armed Forces. I may be wrong but I think the other group to get it first were hospital staff. It was an injection.

By the time my son was born (1961) it was routine and he had 3 doses at 6, 7 and 8 months. The first two were injections and the third was a sugar lump. I think there was a booster at 5 years old.

I remember getting the jabs. Twice.

First time Mum took my brother and I to the clinic, which was jam-packed with screaming, crying, howling kids....... so bro & I added to the noise.

Second time...... Mum had to go somewhere really early, so took us to the clinic first, and there was nobody there...... jabs for the both of us....... while Mum was chatting to a nurse she knew..... she didn't even know we had been jabbed!

I think the worst part was standing in line for ages, watching the other children being stabbed!

:-(

I had the sugar cube as an adult...... over 30 years ago.