We do not offer here a complete list of all the books, articles and stories that are available. That would be over-whelming and confusing. Rather, we list what we consider to be the most helpful items in each category. To do more surfing on your own, we suggest that you start with our page, “Links to Organizational (mostly) Websites.”
Sometimes we are asked for information about iron lungs and/or iron lung users. Check out Jann Hartman’s extensive page about Iron Lung Survivors; it is excellent. Also see “Poliomyelitis History,” and the stories about Dianne Odell and Martin Hutchinson.
Articles on the Web
For an introduction to polio, see Wikipedia’s article on Polio. Includes a photo of the polio virus.
The Immunization Action Coalition has an excellent page about polio. It includes questions and answers about polio, photos, case histories, references and more. Highly recommended.
The Polio History Pages, a site published by Edmund J. Sass, Ed. D. Highly recommended! You may find everything you need at this site. It has much more than just history.
Poliomyelitis History (Includes a photo of the polio virus, photos of iron lungs and other historical photographs. Lots of links and articles. Voluminous site.)
“Conquering the Dreaded Crippler, Polio” – Another history, with lots of good pictures. By Pat Zacharias of The Detroit News.
Worldandi.com has a good biographical article about Jonas Salk, the developer of the first polio vaccine. “Prospects for a More Hopeful Future” should be helpful to you.
A student named Katie published an Annotated Bibliography, a list of the places where she found information about Jonas Salk for a paper she wrote. Good resource.
Read about “Famous People who had Polio.” Don’t stop with the list of names; scroll down the page to read their stories. From Claudius of Rome and Sir Walter Scott to today’s actors, musicians, athletes, scientists, business people and more. Very informative.
The Polio Plus program of Rotary International – In 1985, Rotary International launched this 20-year commitment to eradicate polio, one of the most ambitious humanitarian undertakings ever made by a private entity. This page contains a wealth of information about the global polio eradication effort.