Polio and Diphteria

When reading about the effects of the coronavirus, I got thinking about polio and diphtheria, which were serious medical issues in the last century.

When I was growing up in the 1950s, there was huge fear of polio. The fact that it hit children increased the fear. Some people still thought that it was caused by sun on the back of the neck, we were made to wear sunhats that covered the back of the neck when we went outside.

I did not know of any children who got the disease, but two men in the farming district where we lived had a seriously shrivelled arm due to contracting polio when they were young, presumably during the 1937 outbreak. I also remember hearing about a young woman, who lived many years in an iron lung (probably a Both-Nuffield model) in the Timaru hospital due to lung problems caused by polio.

I did a bit of digging around on the internet and found that polio was a much more serious problem than I had realised, and large numbers of deaths resulted.

Poliomyelitis (polio) is caused by a virus, polio is an incurable disease whose symptoms can range from none at all (95 per cent of cases) through to paralysis (up to 2 per cent) in limbs or the respiratory system. Unfortunately, the older the patient, the more serious the paralysis.

The worst years in New Zealand were:

• 1916 - 1018 new cases; 123 deaths
• 1925 - 1159 - - 173
• 1937 - 816 - - - 39
• 1948 - 963 - - - 52
• 1952 - 890 - - - 57
• 1955 - 703 - - - 29
• 1956 - 897 - - - 50

I had not realised that 70 children died of polio during my first years at school although I presume that they were mostly in the North Island.

During 1948 and 1949, children were prohibited from staying in motor camps and attending Sunday schools, and inter-island travel by school children was forbidden. Swimming pools in Auckland were closed to children. In Hamilton, a Christmas parade was permitted, provided the children stood at least 6 feet (1.83m) apart.

Quarantine measures continued to be applied to all diagnosed cases, however mild. Suspect patients were isolated and school contacts excluded until the diagnosis was confirmed. Peer group contacts, and family contacts who were teachers were also quarantined for two weeks from the last exposure to infection.

In January 1948, the Minister of Education announced that all schools would be closed until Easter - "the danger of a deadly epidemic must be met." Lessons would be by correspondence and supplemented by broadcasts: "every home will become a miniature school." Assignments from the Correspondence School in the. form of booklets for each class from Primer Three to Form II were distributed to pupils, who sent the completed work to teachers for marking. The Education Department arranged for the posting of assignments to be free of charge.

The broadcast lessons began with a session between 9.30 and 10 am for Primers to Standard Two. The programmes provided activity in the form of written work which the children will do as a follow-up. Standard Three to Form II had talks on music appreciation, current news, nature study, social studies, literature and "two special quiz sessions to test their listening", between 11 and 11.30 am. Secondary schools broadcasts covering English, social studies, general science and mathematics were broadcast in the afternoon.

Most schools in New Zealand re-opened on 1 March 1948, although those in Auckland, and in some other individual places, did not re-open until 19 April.

I do not remember how old I was but I can remember being vaccinated for polio. A public health nurse came to school and gave us the vaccine in a drink in a screened-off corner of the schoolroom. Evidently, the start of the program vaccination had to be delayed when the first batch of vaccine intended for New Zealand failed tests in Great Britain. The first vaccine arrived in New Zealand in September 1956. 5-9 year-olds were vaccinated first, because they were at school they were easy to organise. Also, this age group had an "indifference to personal hygiene" which made them good spreaders of infection.

Consent cards were sent out to the parents of all primary school children The acceptance rate by parents was over 90% which was an incredibly high rate for any public health measure anywhere. By Spring 1959, all children between two and 16 had been vaccinated. Polio vaccine was later added to the recommended vaccine for diphtheria and whooping cough at three months.

Diphtheria was another disease that created real fear. I remember my mother talking about what a nasty illness it was. Diphtheria is a serious bacterial infection that infects the throat and nose. While some cases may were mild, the bacteria could produce dangerous toxins that caused severe complications which can be life-threatening, including heart trouble, paralysis, and kidney failure.

The worst year for diphtheria was in New Zealand was 1892, when 281 deaths occurred. In 1917, the year before the flu epidemic 240 people died of diphtheria. An outbreak in 1929–30 resulted in 150 deaths. During the second world war, a number of NZ soldiers died of diphtheria while fighting overseas.