Spanish Health Services and Polio Epidemics in the Twentieth Century: the ‘Discovery' of a New Group of Disabled People, 1920–70

This chapter draws on the narratives of twenty-five Spanish polio survivors who acquired the disease between 1940 and 1970. Interviews cover the entire life experience from the first alarming diagnosis to the most recent development of post-polio syndrome. The chapter considers how medical, social, political, economic and cultural factors served to define agendas, establish priorities and create new identities for patients and professionals. Sporadic manifestations of poliomyelitis in Spain from the end of the nineteenth century spawned medical publications about the disease. Jonas Salk's killed-virus vaccine Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV) had been tried in the USA in 1951, while Albert Sabin's oral vaccine Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) was first trialled in the USSR in 1953. Oral testimony from Spain suggests ideological objections to OPV were further encouraged by Sabin's Polish ancestry and the fact that Poland fell within the Soviet sphere of influence. Electrotherapy was commonly employed and, in severe cases when respiratory muscles were affected, iron lungs.