Polio Year

The nation would remember 1946 as its worst polio year in three decades. The year's toll so far: 22,371 cases (approaching 1916's record 27,000). Cost of treatment, $4,000,000, had almost wiped out the emergency aid fund of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Polio news was mostly bad: 1946 is the fourth consecutive epidemic year. The four-year total: 65,000 cases, more than twice as many as in the preceding quadrennium.

But for many a parent who had lived through the nightmare fear of polio, there was some statistical encouragement: in 1916, 25% of polio's victims died. This year, thanks to early recognition of the disease and improved treatment (iron lungs, physical therapy, etc.) the death rate is down to 5%.

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