Last Children's Plague

This book locates the subjectivity of children's illnesses and disabilities within the larger context of the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. The changing concept of the child, from an economic asset to an emotional commitment, medical advances, and improved sanitation policies led to significant improvements in child health and welfare. Poliomyelitis thoroughly stumped the medical science community. Polio's impact remained highly visible and sometimes lingered, exacting a priceless physical toll on its young victims and their families as well as transforming their social worlds. This social history of infantile paralysis is plugged into the rich and dynamic developments of that century. Poliomyelitis affected these developments as much as they shaped perceptions of and institutional responses to this virus. Children became epidemic refugees because of anachronistic public health policies and practices. They entered the emerging, clinical world of the hospital, rupturing physical and emotional connections with their parents and siblings. As they underwent rehabilitation, they created ward cultures. They returned home to occasionally find hostile environments and always discover changed relationships due to their disabilities. Schooling proved to be a public stage for them; there, they became the other.