Daniel J. Wilson is professor of history at Muhlenberg College. He is the author of four previous books, including Science, Community, and the Transformation of American Philosophy, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
"Wilson succeeds admirably on his own terms - taking ownership of the disease from medics (and from the academics and theoreticians) and giving it back to the patients who actually experienced it.... Daniel Wilson's book is a sobering indictment of the treatment of disabled people in mid-century America that can be read with profit, and, it is to be hoped, without complacency, by any practitioner today." - Seamus Sweeney, Times Literary Supplement "[Daniel J. Wilson] has done an admirable job of assembling more than 150 first-person accounts into a coherent narrative.... In the America of 2005, new cases of polio are extraordinarily rare; the World Health Organization hopes to eradicate it completely by 2008. But Mr. Wilson reminds us that more than half a million Americans are still living with its consequences." - Gordon Haber, New York Sun "For readers who... did not live during the prevaccine period, Living with Polio provides an excellent survey of the stories of those who had the misfortune of being struck by the disease." - Mark Pallansch, Science"
"Wilson succeeds admirably on his own terms - taking ownership of the disease from medics (and from the academics and theoreticians) and giving it back to the patients who actually experienced it.... Daniel Wilson's book is a sobering indictment of the treatment of disabled people in mid-century America that can be read with profit, and, it is to be hoped, without complacency, by any practitioner today." - Seamus Sweeney, Times Literary Supplement "[Daniel J. Wilson] has done an admirable job of assembling more than 150 first-person accounts into a coherent narrative.... In the America of 2005, new cases of polio are extraordinarily rare; the World Health Organization hopes to eradicate it completely by 2008. But Mr. Wilson reminds us that more than half a million Americans are still living with its consequences." - Gordon Haber, New York Sun "For readers who... did not live during the prevaccine period, Living with Polio provides an excellent survey of the stories of those who had the misfortune of being struck by the disease." - Mark Pallansch, Science"
If you were an American child in the 1940s and early '50s and contracted a summer flu, there was real cause for worry?because the initial signs of polio resembled flu symptoms. More than 400,000 American children in those years did get polio, and many of them survived?including Wilson, a professor of history at Muhlenberg College. This volume, unlike others marking the polio vaccine's discovery, tells the survivors' stories: the difficult, painful journey from diagnosis to recovery, including paralysis, hospital isolation wards, grueling physical therapy, living with disability and, most recently, the emergence of postpolio syndrome, the recurrence of symptoms decades after recovery from the disease. Wilson's account, drawn from more than 150 polio narratives, is perhaps most affecting in highlighting the less well-known moments and facts: a doctor's futile attempt to downplay the harshness of the diagnosis; the double burden on African-Americans when hospitals would not admit them; and children being children even in the hospital wards, as they have spitball fights and play pranks. Wilson's account is a fitting testimony to the survivors' suffering and courage. (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
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