Poliomyelitis Epidemic

The term Poliomyelitis epidemic or infantile paralysis became popular because of it effects in children. Polio became the short version of poliomyelitis. Polio is a virus but not a bacterium. Once a child becomes infected, after three to six days, the child would develop symptoms such as a cold with a headache, sore throat, fever, vomiting, and even have fever before becoming paralyzed (in some cases). Victims would feel stiffness at the joins of the neck, back, and legs and even becomes total paralysis on their arms, legs, or the whole body, or even died (Trevelyan, Smallman_Raynor, & Cliff, 2005). Some children who got the poliovirus were kept out from the crowd; they were not allowed to go anywhere and as a result felt lonely because no

one would interact with them because of fearing.
Some people were injured to the brain, spinal cord, or phrenic nerves that can resulted in the loss of diaphragmatic innervation and cause paralysis. As a result, the diaphragm is unable to contract thus no air is exchanged in the lungs and it paralyzed the respiratory muscle (Mckinley, 2008). People who develop diaphragmatic paralysis were placed in a breathing machine known as Iron Lunge, which have invented in 1931 (A Paralyzing Fear, 1998). The Iron Lunge was to aid the victims to breath and stay alive.
Scientists believed that the virus go through the nose and travel into the brain where it attacks the central nervous system. This implies that the viruses are easily spread from person to person through eating, touching and being exposed to an infected person (A Paralyzing Fear, 1998). Public Health was not as advance as it is today, which led to many people becoming victims of the poliovirus. As doctors and scientists become more challenged to break the code of this deadly virus, no one has been able to develop a cure, however, there is a vaccine that helps prevent the spread.