Description
Book SynopsisPolio was the most dreaded disease of twentieth-century America. Whenever and wherever it struck, hospitals filled with victims of the virus. This book focuses on the personal stories of the men and women who had acute polio and lived with its crippling consequences. It also details each physical and emotional stage of the disease.
Trade Review"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"
