Polio Hall of Fame
Encyclopedia
Poliomyelitis
Poliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infectious disease spread from person to person, primarily via the fecal-oral route...
. It is found on the outside wall of what is called Founder's Hall of the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation in Warm Springs, Georgia
Warm Springs, Georgia
Warm Springs is a city in Meriwether County, Georgia, United States. The population was 478 at the 2010 census.-History:Warm Springs first came to prominence in the 19th century as a spa town, due to its mineral springs which flow constantly at nearly 32 °C...
, USA.
History of the monument
Designed by Edmond Romulus AmateisEdmond Romulus Amateis
Edmond Romulus Amateis was an American sculptor and educator. He is known for garden-figure sculptures, colossal architectural sculptures for public buildings and portrait busts.-Life:...
, the sculpted busts were cast in bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
and positioned in an irregular linear pattern on a white marble wall. Amateis was commissioned by the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation to create the Hall of Fame for the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the incorporation of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. On January 2, 1958 the monument was unveiled in a ceremony attended by the artist and almost all of the still living scientists. Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
, the president’s widow, represented her late husband at the ceremony.
There is a detailed coverage of the celebration including photographs of the sculptor and the persons involved posing in front of their respective busts in Edward A. Beeman’s biography of one the scientists, Charles Armstrong (see below No. 6)
Individuals represented
The first fifteen of the seventeen bronze busts show fourteen men and one woman, who were instrumental in polio research and treatment. The last two on the right are Roosevelt and his close aide Basil O'ConnorBasil O'Connor
Basil O'Connor was an American lawyer. In co-operation with US-President Franklin D. Roosevelt he started two foundations for the rehabiltation of polio patients and the research on polio prevention and treatment...
. The first four are the European polio pioneers Jakob Heine
Jakob Heine
Jakob Heine was a German orthopaedist. He is most famous for his 1840 study into poliomyelitis, which was the first medical report on the disease, and the first time the illness was recognised as a clinical entity...
, from Germany, the two Swedes Karl Oskar Medin
Karl Oskar Medin
Karl Oskar Medin was a Swedish pediatrician. He was born at Axberg, Örebro and died in Stockholm. He is most famous for his study of poliomyelitis, an illness often known as the Heine-Medin disease, named after Medin and another physician, Jakob Heine...
and Ivar Wickman
Ivar Wickman
Otto Ivar Wickman was a Swedish physician, who discovered in 1907 the epidemic and contagious character of poliomyelitis- Education and academic career :...
and the Austrian Nobel-Prize Laureate Karl Landsteiner
Karl Landsteiner
Karl Landsteiner , was an Austrian-born American biologist and physician of Jewish origin. He is noted for having first distinguished the main blood groups in 1900, having developed the modern system of classification of blood groups from his identification of the presence of agglutinins in the...
. Nos. 5 to 17 are exclusively Americans. The order of the busts is not strictly chronological. In spite of his achievements in the field of fighting polio, Hilary Koprowski
Hilary Koprowski
Hilary Koprowski is a Polish virologist and immunologist, and inventor of the world's first effective live polio vaccine.-Life:...
's (inventor of the world's first effective live polio vaccine
Polio vaccine
Two polio vaccines are used throughout the world to combat poliomyelitis . The first was developed by Jonas Salk and first tested in 1952. Announced to the world by Salk on April 12, 1955, it consists of an injected dose of inactivated poliovirus. An oral vaccine was developed by Albert Sabin...
) bust was not included in the monument.
| No. | Name | Achievement |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jakob Heine Jakob Heine Jakob Heine was a German orthopaedist. He is most famous for his 1840 study into poliomyelitis, which was the first medical report on the disease, and the first time the illness was recognised as a clinical entity... (1800-1879) |
Discovered and described infantile paralysis Poliomyelitis Poliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infectious disease spread from person to person, primarily via the fecal-oral route... in 1840. |
| 2 | Karl Oskar Medin Karl Oskar Medin Karl Oskar Medin was a Swedish pediatrician. He was born at Axberg, Örebro and died in Stockholm. He is most famous for his study of poliomyelitis, an illness often known as the Heine-Medin disease, named after Medin and another physician, Jakob Heine... (1847-1927) |
Recognized and described polio as an acute infection (1890). |
| 3 | Ivar Wickman Ivar Wickman Otto Ivar Wickman was a Swedish physician, who discovered in 1907 the epidemic and contagious character of poliomyelitis- Education and academic career :... (1872-1914) |
Discovered the epidemic character of polio (1907) and coined the term Heine-Medin disease; also showed a high prevalence of non-paralytic polio. |
| 4 | Karl Landsteiner Karl Landsteiner Karl Landsteiner , was an Austrian-born American biologist and physician of Jewish origin. He is noted for having first distinguished the main blood groups in 1900, having developed the modern system of classification of blood groups from his identification of the presence of agglutinins in the... (1868-1943) |
Discovered poliovirus Poliovirus Poliovirus, the causative agent of poliomyelitis, is a human enterovirus and member of the family of Picornaviridae.Poliovirus is composed of an RNA genome and a protein capsid. The genome is a single-stranded positive-sense RNA genome that is about 7500 nucleotides long. The viral particle is... and demonstrated transmission to monkeys. |
| 5 | Thomas Milton Rivers Thomas Milton Rivers Thomas Milton Rivers was an American bacteriologist and virologist. The "father of modern virology."- Life :... (1888-1962) |
Chairman of the National Foundation committee on vaccination,which planned the successful 1954 vaccine field trials. |
| 6 | Charles Armstrong Charles Armstrong (physician) Charles Armstrong was an American physician in the U.S. Public Health Service. He coined the name Lymphocytic choriomeningitis in 1934 after isolating the hitherto completely unknown virus... (1886-1967) |
A Public Health Service physician, Armstrong discovered in 1939 that poliovirus can be transmitted to cotton rats, and started self-tests with nasal spray vaccination. |
| 7 | John R. Paul John R. Paul John Rodman Paul was an American virologist whose research focused on the spread of polio and the development of treatments for the disease.-Life and achievements:Paul was born on April 18, 1893, in Philadelphia... (1893-1972) |
Made essential contributions to the knowledge of how polio is spread. |
| 8 | Albert Sabin Albert Sabin Albert Bruce Sabin was an American medical researcher best known for having developed an oral polio vaccine.-Life:... (1906-1993) |
A leader in the search for a live virus vaccine for polio, Sabin helped show how the virus reached the central nervous system Central nervous system The central nervous system is the part of the nervous system that integrates the information that it receives from, and coordinates the activity of, all parts of the bodies of bilaterian animals—that is, all multicellular animals except sponges and radially symmetric animals such as jellyfish... . |
| 9 | Thomas Francis, Jr. Thomas Francis, Jr. Thomas Francis, Jr. was an American physician, virologist, and epidemiologist. Francis was the first person to isolate influenza virus in America, and in 1940 showed that there are other strains of influenza, and took part in the development of influenza vaccines.- Life and achievements :Francis... (1900-1969) |
An epidemiologist at the University of Michigan University of Michigan The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan... and Salk’s (No. 15) tutor; recognized the effectiveness of the Salk vaccine. |
| 10 | Joseph L. Melnick Joseph L. Melnick Joseph Louis Melnick was an American epidemiologist who performed breakthrough research on the spread of polio, with The New York Times calling him "a founder of modern virology".-Early life and education:... (1914-2001) |
Developed immunity measures for populations exposed to the virus. |
| 11 | Isabel Morgan Isabel Morgan Isabel Merrick Morgan was an American virologist at Johns Hopkins University,... (1911-1996) |
Prepared an experimental vaccine from virus inactivated with formaldehyde which protected monkeys against paralytic polio. |
| 12 | Howard A. Howe | The first to show that chimpanzees can acquire polio infection by mouth; carried out small-scale experiments in humans with a formalin- treated vaccine. |
| 13 | David Bodian David Bodian David Bodian , was an American medical scientist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who worked in polio research . In the early 1940s he helped lay the groundwork for the eventual development of polio vaccines by combining neurological research with the study of the pathogenesis of... (1910-1992) |
Showed that the virus gets into the blood stream before reaching the central nervous system and therefore could be blocked by antibodies Antibody An antibody, also known as an immunoglobulin, is a large Y-shaped protein used by the immune system to identify and neutralize foreign objects such as bacteria and viruses. The antibody recognizes a unique part of the foreign target, termed an antigen... in the blood. |
| 14 | John F. Enders (1897-1985) | Led the way in finding how to grow polio viruses in cultures of non-nervous tissue, which made possible the production of a safe and effective vaccine in quantity. |
| 15 | Jonas E. Salk (1914-1995) | Developed the vaccine which bears his name. |
| 16 | Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war... (1882-1945) |
Founded the Warm Springs Foundation in 1927 and the "National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP)" in 1938. |
| 17 | Basil O'Connor Basil O'Connor Basil O'Connor was an American lawyer. In co-operation with US-President Franklin D. Roosevelt he started two foundations for the rehabiltation of polio patients and the research on polio prevention and treatment... (1892-1972) |
The architect of the fight against polio, O'Connor was president of the NFIP from its outset in 1938 and of the "Georgia Warm Springs Foundation" after 1945. |
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Warm Springs
Beginning in 1924, the 32nd U.S. President Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
had regularly spent some time at Warm Springs and died there in 1945. In 1921 he had developed flaccid paralysis
Franklin D. Roosevelt's paralytic illness
Franklin D. Roosevelt's paralytic illness began in 1921 at age 39, when Roosevelt got a fever after exercising heavily at a vacation in Canada. While his bout with illness was well known during his terms as President of the United States, the extent of his paralysis was kept from public view. After...
of the upper and lower extremities, which was diagnosed as poliomyelitis. In the light of newer research, however, the disease was probably Guillain-Barré syndrome
Guillain-Barré syndrome
Guillain–Barré syndrome , sometimes called Landry's paralysis, is an acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy , a disorder affecting the peripheral nervous system. Ascending paralysis, weakness beginning in the feet and hands and migrating towards the trunk, is the most typical symptom...
(GBS), which was scarcely known at the time. In 1927 Roosevelt founded the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, which today is known as the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation and takes care of patients with handicaps of all kinds.