Made in the 1950s by the March of Dimes, REMEMBER ME is a poignant reminder of the polio crisis that gripped the United States in the 20th Century. Made just after the Salk vaccine had been developed, the film attempts to remind the audience of the suffering of infantile paralysis victims, and continue to fund the fight against the disease. It also encourages the audience to respect the abilities of these children and adults and not their disabilities. At 1;44, a man is seen typing with his toes. At 2:00, empty summer camps and swimming pools are seen in the wake of a 1955 outbreak. At 2:30 a shopping center is seen, its parking lot empty because of the outbreak. At 3:00, a polio victim arrives at a hospital. At 3:25, a hospital in Boston is seen, with young patients in the hospital. At 4:00, a hospital in Wisconsin is seen with many child patients. At 4:30, an extremely weak adult victim is shown, and at 5:20 the crutches and braces used for treating deformed victims are shown. At 5:50, a patient immobilized in a cast is seen. At 6:10 children are shown being treated in iron lungs with round-the-clock nursing care. The film ends with the reminder — polio is not over.
Two vaccines are used throughout the world to combat polio. The first was developed by Jonas Salk, first tested in 1952, and announced to the world by Salk on April 12, 1955. The Salk vaccine, or inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV), consists of an injected dose of killed poliovirus. In 1954, the vaccine was tested for its ability to prevent polio; the field trials involving the Salk vaccine would grow to be the largest medical experiment in history. Immediately following licensing, vaccination campaigns were launched, by 1957, following mass immunizations promoted by the March of Dimes the annual number of polio cases in the United States would be dramatically reduced, from a peak of nearly 58,000 cases, to just 5,600 cases.
Eight years after Salk’s success, Albert Sabin developed an oral polio vaccine (OPV) using live but weakened (attenuated) virus.[58] Human trials of Sabin’s vaccine began in 1957 and it was licensed in 1962. Following the development of oral polio vaccine, a second wave of mass immunizations would lead to a further decline in the number of cases: by 1961, only 161 cases were recorded in the United States. The last cases of paralytic poliomyelitis caused by endemic transmission of poliovirus in the United States were in 1979, when an outbreak occurred among the Amish in several Midwestern states.
Poliomyelitis was first recognized as a distinct condition by Jakob Heine in 1840. Its causative agent, poliovirus, was identified in 1908 by Karl Landsteiner. Polio had existed for thousands of years in certain areas, with depictions of the disease in ancient art. Major polio epidemics started to appear in the late 19th century in Europe and soon after the United States, and it became one of the most dreaded childhood diseases of the 20th century. The epidemics are attributed to better sanitation which reduced the prevalence of the disease among young children who were more likely to be asymptomatic. Survivors then develop immunity. By 1910, much of the world experienced a dramatic increase in polio cases and epidemics became regular events, primarily in cities during the summer months. These epidemics—which left thousands of children and adults paralyzed—provided the impetus for a “Great Race” towards the development of a vaccine. Developed in the 1950s, polio vaccines have reduced the global number of polio cases per year from many hundreds of thousands to under a thousand today. Enhanced vaccination efforts led by Rotary International, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF should result in global eradication of the disease, although in 2013 there were reports by the World Health Organization of new cases in Syria.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
