Otter Valley Polio Epidemic

The Otter Valley polio epidemic is the first polio epidemic to be described in the United States . It occurred in 1894 in the Otter Valley near Rutland , Vermont .

Polio has been a disease that has been known for many centuries. However, it was always endemic with only a few diseases. Only in the course of the 19th century did it appear in epidemic form and was not distinguished from other diseases until the middle of the 19th century by Jakob von Heine . No knowledge was available about pathogens and the course of the infection. The exact documentation of the disease outbreak in the Otter Valley is thanks to the country doctor Charles Caverley, who carefully documented all the cases he came across. Charles Caverley described a total of 123 cases, fifty of which were permanently paralyzed and 18 died.

Charles Caverley's achievement was mainly to show that the disease could very well take an epidemic-like course and that the term polio was incorrect for this disease. Even though mostly children were affected, there were still several cases of sick adults. He also pointed out that the disease sometimes took a very mild form, in which the sick showed few symptoms and recovered quickly and without any consequential damage. His findings were confirmed in 1905 by Ivar Wickman , who used Swedish polio outbreaks to prove that the disease was transmitted from person to person.

literature

• David M. Oshinsky: Polio: An American Story . Oxford University Press, USA, 2005, ISBN 0-19-530714-3 .