POLIOMYELITIS: NEWARK 1916

About the Book

POLIOMYELITIS: NEWARK 1916 — “THE GRIP OF FEAR” is a study of the devastating "scourge" that struck the city of Newark a century ago. Most victims were infants and toddlers for whom there were no effective treatments, no vaccines, and no iron lungs. Per capita, Newark was the hardest hit of any American city, with 1,360 cases and 363 deaths. The book draws heavily on newspaper accounts, public health documents, and the accounts of physicians who faced the epidemic with uncertain knowledge and no effective treatment. Public health officials, as in all epidemics, desperately sought to limit the spread of disease and, in the process, risked creating a medical police state. Hundreds of survivors faced a lifetime of disability, giving poliomyelitis its particular power to terrify.

About the Author

Dr. Sandra Moss practiced and taught general internal medicine in central New Jersey for many years. In 2005, she completed a master's degree in the history of technology, medicine, and the environment from the federated history program of the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University. Dr. Moss has published numerous articles, chapters, and reviews in the field of medical history, and regularly addresses diverse audiences on a variety of topics in the history of medicine. She is past president of the Medical History Society of New Jersey and of the American Osler Society. Her previous books, The Country Practitioner: Ellis P. Townsend and His Brave Little Medical Journal (2011) and Edgar Holden, M.D., of Newark, New Jersey: Provincial Physician on a National Stage (2014) were published by Xlibris.