Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History Polio Epidemic In The United States 20240712

I just wanted to explain in advance that this advance that this history course looks at responses to disasters in American History, with an emphasis on research and writing. Over the semester, weve examined various disasters from different perspectives. First of all, the psychological and physical problems at jamestown. Disaster sermons and responses to fires, hurricanes, and epidemics in colonial america. Famine suffered by the donner party en route to california. Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine and the ability to create new lives in this country. Disaster tourism at the johnstown flood of 1889. The impact of the triangle shirt waist factory fire in new york city and disaster art that emerged from the 1930s dust bowl. So, today we are discussing David Oshinskys Pulitzer Prizewinning book polio an american story. You all received questions i posted. And im really interested in this topic because i also teach a seminar on the 1950s, and thats when so much of this book takes place. I think just looking at polio really reveals so many different issues that affected that decade. Before starting, though, i just want to mention one thing in light of what we were talking about in terms of dust bowl art, i was reading the new york review of books and there is a review of a novel that Woody Guthrie wrote, a novel called house of earth. It doesnt get a very good review, but, obviously he gets , attention. The introduction was by a historian named Douglas Brinkley and johnny depp, so i think theyre trying to sell copies by having a superstar on the cover. Ok, i divided the discussion in four major themes. We cant cover all of oshinskys books, but i thought the most interesting were looking at philanthropy, medical research, scientists and their various personalities, which are interesting, and also the ethical issues. Lets start with the way we always do when looking at anything we have to read and that is, first of all, who is David Oshinsky . Yeah . Katie . The professor at the university of texas at austin and a distinguished scholar in residence at nyu. Prof. Mcmillen ok. So, fairly reputable we would say, yeah, probably knows what hes talking about. I saw that he won the cartwright award, cartwright prize, from Columbia University Medical Center in 2010 and that was for his research into the history of polio, so also helps add credit before even reading his book. Prof. Mcmillen definitely add some credibility. Were you going to add Something Else . He also won the Pulitzer Prize award in 2006. Prof. Mcmillen winning a Pulitzer Prize is substantial thats for sure. Overall what did you think of his writing, his scholarship, his research . Were you impressed . Elizabeth . I was impressed by the thoroughness of his research. I think he kind of went above and beyond researching the relationships between the scientists and between, you know, the politicians and the scientists and the foundation. I think there was a lot. He sort of went pretty much as far as he could. It was a lot like when we talk to robert how it took him seven , years to write his book instead of two, it kind of felt like the same way. Prof. Mcmillen yeah, right. Very much indepth and really a nice variety in terms of people he interviewed. Caroline . I thought it was a good balance between information and kind of story in the book. I found it very readable, i thought, originally when we had , to read the whole book it would take me a really long time but i found myself getting into it and i thought it was easy to read and interesting, so i thought he did a good job of making it accessible and not so academic. Prof. Mcmillen this is one of the great examples of how history is really stories and this is a very well told story on multiple levels. Carly . He did a good job describing the historical point of it as well as the scientific point, but also the kind of politics of each point, like, not only a political aspect but the science, which was an interesting point of view. Prof. Mcmillen something very we havent done that before. Yeah, right. What do you think . Did he deserve the Pulitzer Prize . What do you think . I think thumbsup, right. Obviously man of some repute and , a certainly did a great job on this book. The first well recorded outbreak of polio took place in rutland, vermont, in 1894. 123 people there caught polio. There was another outbreak, substantial outbreak in 1907 and then a major outbreak in 1916 that began in pigtown, in brooklyn, new york and that spread across the northeast and some 6,000 people died from that outbreak. Oshinsky has an interesting comment or thoughts to make about why these epidemics suddenly broke out. Why it is in the late 19th and then in the early 20th century, suddenly we see these so many more people affected by this disease. And what does he say . How does he tie in the germ theory of disease with his comments about the outbreak of those polio epidemics . He describes it as the age of cleanliness, so america became so preoccupied with hygiene and cleaning up the cities and the youth werent as exposed to microorganisms that carried disease and bacteria. So, they were more likely to be infected and not have an immune system to certain diseases. Prof. Mcmillen and carry that forward. Somebody else. What does that mean in terms of children not being exposed to the germs and bacteria, what happens . When you got polio as a young child it was a lesser dose or it wasnt as effective, you didnt have as many side effects, when you get it older, you get it stronger like chicken pox and its better to get it as a kid its a much milder case. Prof. Mcmillen when you are really young, you have your mothers antibodies to withstand the impact of those diseases. That was something that sort of traditionally happened in america but suddenly everybodys washing hands and cleaning clothes and better sanitation. I dont know if its an argument for not washing hands, i dont think so. But something happened in this country more susceptible to polio. What was so frightening about that disease . What was different about polio that hadnt been true of diseases before this . I think the fact that made it so frightening is that it was primarily children who got it and they found no reason for why certain children got it, it wasnt children in poor communities. It was children all across the board maybe even more so in rich and clean areas. Prof. Mcmillen right. Theres no cause or no cure. No known cause or no known cure. Prof. Mcmillen for a disease like colorado, this would be among the poor, those who are drinking bad water and living in filthy conditions. Polio hit everybody, okay . There was no class issue when it came to polio. Also, initially it hit very, very Young Children, hence, you know, it was called infantile. Paralysis because it hit children typically sort of between the ages of 1 and 3. That is going to change. But, nevertheless, here it is affecting innocent children. What else was different about this disease . It just accelerated very quickly. It was as if all of a sudden the child would wake up with a stiff neck and a fever and a couple hours or a day later they could be losing feelings in their limbs. I think that was terrifying for a lot of parents because, you know, it was just like that. Prof. Mcmillen yeah, and no idea how the child had gotten the disease. Were you going to add Something Else . I was going to say along the same line, but i was also going to say they recently came out with the antibiotic of penicillin, but that had no effect on polio because it was a viral infection. Prof. Mcmillen right. A viral infection was kind of, like, new to that age with influenza. Prof. Mcmillen it is viral and not bacterial so penicillin did absolutely nothing. Anything else unique and different . Cases,ome of the later they said it could wipe out the entire family. One family had five kids that died one day after each other. Prof. Mcmillen and there were cases of that. Terrifying to parents. Prof. Mcmillen totally terrifying. So, this was, you know, something that you can just imagine being a parent and, you know, having a very, very young child suddenly succumb to this horrible, horrible disease. So, nobody knew what caused it. Nobody knew how to cure it. Initially, what was the response, you know, if a child got polio or if you feared polio in your community, how did people react . What did they do initially . What did they do . They were quarantined and they shut down public spaces where children would gather, like swimming pools and movie theaters. Prof. Mcmillen indeed, rightly understood. It was contagious, it did spread from person to person, so they understood it was a contagious disease and i can tell you stories of friends of mine at least who, you know, remember in childhood when they couldnt go to the local public swimming pool, you know, movie theaters were closed, where literally you were forced to stay out of any situation that involved a whole lot of people, particularly areas where children gathered. Oshinsky also shows the very sorry state of medical research in the late 19th century. This was people almost distrusted, you know, medical research. And, of course, no one could conceive of the federal government supporting medical research, you know, we didnt have the National Institute of health. We didnt have the centers for disease control. This was something medical research if it happened was something that had to be funded by individuals or by foundations. But it really wasnt generating that kind of response. And for many doctors, certainly this was true in the mid to late 19th century, if you really wanted a good medical education, you went abroad. If you really wanted to engage in any kind of research, you went to europe. In 1902,that changed when what happened . What major donor changed all of that . Yeah. Reagan . Rockefeller. Prof. Mcmillen yeah, john d. Rockefeller, right. He had millions, what is he going to do with his money . Indeed, he was convinced to give this money to found a research institute, not a hospital, not a medical school, but an Actual Research institute and this, of course, is the Rockefeller Institute which is in new york , city. In fact, if you go to new york city, i mean, you can see this beautiful, beautiful, these beautiful grounds and this building. Its right on the east river i think in the high 50s or low 60s. So, this was something new. This was very exciting and the director of the man who was appointed director of this institute was a man named simon flexler, who held the position for 40 years. What did you get . Did you get a sense of his personality, the man who headed this institute . Was he rather headstrong . Prof. Mcmillen yes, ok. How about removing the rather. Headstrong. And, like, it polio was kind of his domain and if you were going to research polio you had to do it his way or do another area, so he seemed to be rather controlling, i think, there was one way for Polio Research and it was his. Prof. Mcmillen he was an incredible autocrat, but, i mean, he ran this institute with an iron fist in a way. This was his thing. This institute, of course, took on many, many diseases, polio was merely one of the many diseases studied at the Rockefeller Institute. Now of course, the major event , that really put polio in sort of on the map, when it suddenly gained a lot more attention was, of course, a personal tragedy and that was Franklin Delano roosevelt coming down with polio in 1921. Here was a 39yearold man. Hes not an infant from a very well to do family, a very robust man. And suddenly he succumbed to polio at his familys summer home on Campobello Island. How does oshinsky explain how someone like roosevelt got polio . What had happened in his past or recently to explain this . Well, he says that he was extremely vulnerable because as a child, he didnt have many illnesses and then as he was growing up, he became very active. He was traveling the world. He also, like, became exhausted and stressed with the amount of work that he had. Prof. Mcmillen ok. And that led to his immune system going down and being, of course, around a lot of other people who he could have contracted the disease from. Prof. Mcmillen ok. Anybody know anything about roosevelts childhood . He was very, like, wealthy prof. Mcmillen extremely. So he was separated from the mainstream American Population, which meant that he wasnt he didnt contract, like, common childhood diseases which would have raised his immune system, so once he went out in the real world, he was much more susceptible. Prof. Mcmillen his mother was an extremely controlling individual and she basically oversaw his childhood. She made sure he was totally protected from everything and everybody. She was quite something. But anyway, of course, that was just exactly what was not good for a child, you know, not having the normal exposure to diseases that most children did. So as you said, this was, you know, a sort of unique childhood and a very, very privileged, privileged upbringing. Anything else about roosevelt that would help explain . He was exhausted, ok. Where had he been right before he went to Campobello Island . Pardon . The boy scouts convention . Prof. Mcmillen yeah. He was at a boy scouts meeting just days before, met a whole bunch of young boys and thats probably where he contracted polio. What else . Wasnt he battling some, like, sex scandal allegations . Prof. Mcmillen he had been in d. C. Ngton. He had been for three days under, you know, tremendous pressure going through these congressional investigations and questioning, so, again, getting absolutely exhausted. Were you going to add Something Else, josh . I was going to call it was called the lemay scandal and prof. Mcmillen and pressure, tension, et cetera. And then apparently, i dont know if he fell off the boat, sailboat, or if he actually went swimming, but he went into this really cold water. I dont know if any of you tried to swim up in northern maine or somewhere like that, but its absolutely frigid. But he fell in the water and he stayed in his bathing suit and obviously he got chilled and this, again, you know, interfered with his immune system and basically lowering his resistance. So, suddenly, we have this energetic, robust, 39yearold man woke up and was paralyzed. And from that point forward, of course, Franklin Roosevelt never walked alone. He always wore metal braces. He was assisted by somebody if he ever managed to walk to a podium to give a speech. Typically, though, he was sitting, that was usually, whenever you see a picture of him, typically, he was sitting down, and he was often in pain. And his mother felt the best the best path for roosevelt to follow would be to come home to hyde park, she would take care of him, and he could lead this lovely quiet life. But his wife eleanor convinced him otherwise. She felt the very best thing was for roosevelt, no, to reenter public life to really try on get back to some kind of normal life if at all possible and fortunately, of course, that is what he did. Its amazing how many people in this country never realized that roosevelt was handicapped, that he had had polio and that he could not walk. Ive had students do oral histories of people who 11th in andived in the 1930s 1940s, and theyre, like, no, no, he wasnt paralyzed. He wasnt. They really did not know, and so roosevelt was determined, you know, not to make a big deal of this, not to become this sympathetic character and also there was a stigma about being handicapped, you know, youre not robust, youre not in a sense a whole person. And so he didnt he really didnt want people to know and he did a great job of really hiding this fact. Well, he returned to normal life. He partnered with a young man named basel oconnor, they started a new York Law Firm and then shortly thereafter, roosevelt heard about this kind of decrepit sort of seedy spa down called warm springs, georgia. Ok, so, this is where the waters boil up and theres minerals in the water and its all warm and wonderful. By the way, did any of you see the movie warm springs with Cynthia Nixon . I thought. Anyway, it was a good movie. Roosevelt traveled there and got in the waters. This was just wonderful. It was really soothing, it was exactly what he needed. So, much to his mothers dismay, he spent two thirds of his inheritance buying this property because what he realized is this is exactly what he needed and also realized that other Polio Victims needed the same. So out of this, he formed what was called the warm springs foundation. And its base, of course, was in warm springs, georgia. He built his own cottage and every summer he would spend weeks there, just enjoying these wonderful warm mineral waters. Well, in 1928 life changed again for roosevelt. Al smith, the governor of new york, the catholic who ran for president in 1928 against Herbert Hoover, asked roosevelt to be his Vice President ial candidate. After much soul searching, roosevelt agreed. They didnt win that. Herbert hoover won as we know, but roosevelt became governor of new york, and he served two twoyear terms as governor of new york. Well, in 1932, of course, Democratic Party decided roosevelt would be the perfect candidate to run against Herbert Hoover. The heart of the depression. Americans were really suffering. Roosevelt ran an incredible upbeat campaign. His Campaign Song was happy days are here again even though nobody was too happy at that point. And of course, he won the presidency and took office in 1933. Now, a number of scholars have looked at roosevelt and his character and feel that polio had an incredible impact on who he was as a person. What did you get out of oshinski oshinsky in terms of what polio did for roosevelt as a man, as a person . Did it have a positive impact, negative impact . I think so much that there was a stigma against polio, he realized if he could go in and be such a fundamental change in the government that other people who were down and out with the depression could do the same thing. The stigma didnt need to be there. I didnt agree with the fact he hid it from everyone, but it proved that just because you have a physical handicap doesnt wean you cant go on and do impressive things. Prof. Mcmillen and there were people who knew about it. And all the more that they would admire this man and see what he had been able to accomplish with a man who was basically handicapped by polio. It was quite incredible. Roosevelt, before he had polio, was pretty much called a lightweight. He was i wouldnt say he was a playboy, but he was not regarded as a man of great substance. Just this wealthy man whod had every privilege in life. But historians really feel polio had a huge impact on him. Here we are in the heart of the depression here is a man who has , gone through this incredibly horrible situation of having to live through he did live through, fortunately this horrible disease. And he emerged what would you imagine he would emerge with if youd gone through that kind of experience . And here millions of americans are suffering economically. How might that affect roosevelt and who he was as a person . I think it made him more empathetic to people suffering in the depression. Because, obviously, coming from a life of privilege, hes not able to empathize with peoples economic situations but hes able to empathize with feeling less than and feeling inferior to people around you. I think it also kind of gave him this inner drive to succeed and to prove to people that polio was not going to define him and that just because he was physically handicapped, it didnt mean he was incapable of being a good president and an effective leader. Prof. Mcmillen i think both of those are really important. The idea that he could overcome this and be it wasnt going to cause him to not do his best in any respect. He was going to become a great president despite the disease. And empathy. That was a huge issue. When he ran against Herbert Hoover, Herbert Hoover seemed like a man who had no connection with what people were suffering. And here was a man who had really suffered physically and could identify with whatever problem somebody was suffering. All right. So, obviously, roosevelt being in albany as governor of new york, then of course occupying the white house, suddenly he is extremely busy. And he has no time to really Pay Attention to his foundation down in warm springs. Basil oconnor to take charge of it. And they hire a Public Relations man. They hire someone to take charge of fundraising and create this incredible foundation. And the first fundraising events were what . That basically used roosevelt effectively . What were those first events . The Birthday Balls . Prof. Mcmillen Birthday Balls, right. What was a Birthday Ball . Werent they just like big parties or fundraisers basically on his birthday. Drive in a bunch of dimes. Prof. Mcmillen not dimes yet. Were still into the balls the still into the fancy balls. Driving a lot of of money for the foundation. Prof. Mcmillen celebrate roosevelt, celebrate his birthday, and you have these fancy balls at fancy hotels. And they were all across the country, which is quite amazing to think about. It wasnt just like in new york and washington, but all across the country. But there is a problem actually there were a couple of problems with those balls. It became readily apparent within a few years. Why might people begin to think maybe these Birthday Balls arent a very good idea . Josh . I think people took issue with using him as a figure head since he was the president. It seemed like he should remain neutral since he held such an important political office. Prof. Mcmillen ok. Hes the president and hes what . What is his Political Party . Democrat. Prof. Mcmillen hes a democrat. So this immediately no republican wants to go to a Birthday Ball for Franklin Roosevelt, right . So you had the political issue. What message does this deliver, these Birthday Balls . If youre in the heart of the depression, how might you the way i look at it, not very inviting towards the lower class. Prof. Mcmillen to say the least. So definitely some class differences there. Prof. Mcmillen very, very strong issues. Exactly. So the Birthday Balls are for the elite, theyre for people who can afford them. Theyre celebrating. People are getting dressed up. And yet, there is the depression, and they, of course, is this democratic president. Well, eventually, within a short period of time they created the foundation for the National Foundation for infantile paralysis. And again, it was Basil Oconnor who took charge of this new foundation. This is when celebrities began to be drawn to this cause, including a man named eddie cantor. You probably never heard of this guy until you read oshinskys book. But he was a major radio personality. And he was the one who coined the phrase march of dimes based upon well, they used to have sort of news reels before movies were shown. They were called march of times. So he took that phrase and made it march of dimes. So out of that, what emerged was a totally new approach to fundraising. Forget the fancy balls. Now what happened . How did this foundation really transform charitable giving, philanthropy in this country . Reagan . It made it so that it wasnt just the wealthy who could contribute to fundraising. So that like everyone could contribute, even if youre poor you could send in a couple of dimes. Prof. Mcmillen ok. Yeah. It involved like the whole country. Prof. Mcmillen yeah. Everybody, ok . This is the march of dimes. Literally march of dimes. And thats exactly what happened. Send in your dimes. Send in your contributions. We dont need a 1,000 check. Just send in your and they were just inundated. Literally piles and piles of dimes came in from people who found this really, really appealing. They could do their part. And there were radio announcements about the importance of the march of dimes. There were collections taken in movie theaters. I guess people were now going to the movies. I cant quite figure that one out. But anyway, apparently they said that the foundation raised about 40 of its contributions in movie theaters. So people attending the movies , would there would be a collection. And they would put their dimes or their quarters or whatever in these buckets. I dont know if any of you go if you go to a broadway show in november in new york city, they always have this plea. Its not for the march of dimes now but its for aids research. And so the actors all on stage at the end, they stand out in the lobby and they hold these little pails and they ask you to contribute. Same kind of thing that was going on back then still goes on today but for a different purpose. So, what did this do . This type of fund raising . What did it do for people in america . How would you feel about this kind of fund raising . I think it kind of brought i think it kind of brought together the nation. It wasnt just a few people contributing to a cause. Instead, it was a whole nation kind of coming together and fighting against polio and it also got out the idea of polio to people who probably didnt know. Didnt haveen televisions, right. And didnt have the ability to see like newscasts and stuff like that. So it kind of got out the whole notion that polio was there and it was killing a lot of people in the united states. Prof. Mcmillen yeah. This is so new. Draw everybody together. Everybody is invested in this fundraising event. This is your disease. This is what you contribute. Reagan . It reached a class of people that had never even been asked to fund raise or participate in fundraising before. It made them feel like they were part of something bigger than for like american nationalism, which led to pride going into world war ii. Prof. Mcmillen incredible pride in doing your part and helping. And actually, this will give away you already know how old i am. But i remember in Elementary School, we all got a little it was like a little piece of cardboard with little round slots in it where you put your dimes, so we all had to fill in this little piece of cardboard with our dimes. Id use my allowance and i did all these extra chores. You wanted to be the first in your class to fill this in and then handed it into the foundation in some way. So this was a huge deal. This was certainly a very different way to raise money. And then, of course, there were the annual fashion shows. And again, while there is this outreach to the people of america, there were still some events that certainly had a class issue about them. And these fashion shows, apparently, were absolutely amazing. I mean, they would draw all the hollywood starlets. Grace kelly. They got Salvador Dali to do some of the background murals for these fashion shows. Harry winston, who had all these really fancy jewels, would donate his jewelry for them. So this was incredibly effective. And then, finally, theres one more aspect of the fundraising that was so important, which had to do with the mothers of america. And what was that . What was that fundraising . The leave your lights on campaign, where everyone for one night left their porch lights on. The mothers would go around and collect change from them. It allowed you to focus all of your effort on one time. It wasnt this monthlong process. Everyone knew one night, were all going to go out and collect money. Right. And again, this was all across america. This was mothers volunteering. This is like a great volunteer army of mothers. You would volunteer. All you had to do was this didnt take much time. It was just a onenight deal. Particular hour. Lots of publicity in advance. Posters, radio announcements, et cetera. And at this one time, you would canvas your assigned neighborhood or your assigned Apartment Building and you would collect money. And people would turn on the light if they wanted to give. If you lived in an Apartment Building, you would put out a pair of shoes, which meant please knock, please ring the doorbell, come in, we are happy to give money. So again, vesting more people into this single cause. So nothing like this has happened before. This is a totally new approach to charitable giving. Okay. I just wanted to mention briefly, since this happened very close to davidson, that outbreak in hickory, north carolina, which is only an hour up the road, in 1944. And i think one of the things that deserves mentioning about that outbreak was that the foundation reacted so quickly. There was an outbreak of polio. The foundation moved in with nurses, with doctors. They took over a summer camp. They built a temporary hospital. Which, i think, showed the incredible resources, the effectiveness that this foundation had, certainly in the 1940s and early 1950s. And there were very few people who died. This response really was effective. Okay. Well, major change in 1945. Roosevelt died in april of 1945. So that caused a huge change. Movie theaters stopped collecting for polio. Now they decided that the money they collected would go to the united way, which is a sort of community allencompassing umbrella philanthropic organization. And yet, people polio cases were on the rise. They were not they were not decreasing. Because, as yet, there was no effective polio vaccine to offset this. So, onto the scientists and to the medical research. Wondering if you found some of the behavior of these scientists as shocking as i did. [laughter] are we dealing with Young Children or are we dealing with grown men . Yes. I know. Oshinsky does quite a job of really getting into the heart of this. Okay. So there is this effort by many researchers to find an effective virus excuse me, an effective vaccine virus to offset this horrible disease. And yet, three things had to be discovered about polio before any researcher could really engage in an effective research. What were those three things . They were how many strains or types of the virus there were, how it entered the body and got to the Central Nervous system, and how to develop a safe supply of the virus type for each vaccine. Prof. Mcmillen okay. So the first thing being how many strains there were. And so they had to start typing all of the polio strains they found. What did they discover . Fortunately . There were only three strains. Rather than hundreds. Today, we have trouble with influenza because the strains seem to change every year. But they really were able to determine there were only three polio strains. All right, the point of origin. What had people long believed about how polio entered the body . Do you remember what they believed it entered through the nose. Prof. Mcmillen Simon Flexner was the one who knew. Absolutely knew that was correct. Because he was just this larger than life personality and such an autocrat, it was like nobody dared challenge him. Researchers began to study this and discovered what . Comes through the mouth. The point of entry is through the mouth, through digestive tract, briefly in the blood, and can attack the muscles. That was a huge breakthrough. The third one being how to replicate the virus in a test tube. The man who discovered this was a man named john enders who ultimately went on to win the nobel he and two assistants ultimately went on to win the nobel prize for medicine in 1954. All right. So we have the foundation beginning to feel a real sense of urgency. Theyre raising all this money. People are really vested in this disease. Its been declared the number one menace in america, even though the death rate was not nearly as high for polio as it was for other things. But when you start getting people so involved in this disease, pretty soon and giving their money, youre going to expect results. So the two major scientists involved in this research and of course, theyre not the only ones, but theyre really the two on whom oshinsky concentrates his book. The first one being jonas salk. And who was jonas salk . What do you remember reading about him . Anything . He was an immigrant. And he came from humble backgrounds. And he, like, slowly but surely prof. Mcmillen his parents were immigrants. His parents i think were russian immigrants, right . But second generation. Yeah. And he, like, had humble beginnings. But eventually through a series of kind of apprenticeships managed to become a star in the field of medical research. Prof. Mcmillen what was his education . Being a poor immigrant . Jewish. City college of new york. He went to a special high school. Then city college of new york, which is practically free. And then to nyu, which actually admitted jews, which, in this period, was often not true of other medical schools. So he graduated. He married. He worked at mount sinai hospital. He then went to the university of michigan. And while at the university of michigan, he was working on trying to find a vaccine to deal with polio. The School Received a lot of grants. But salk began he had a falling out with his mentor. Because salk actually became while he was doing this research at this school, he became a consultant to a drug company. And of course, theres a direct conflict of interest in doing that. And his mentor was really astonished that he did this. And also, even at this young age, salk wanted recognition. He really wanted to be sure everybody knew how important he was and how important the research he was doing. So in 1947, he left the university of michigan. And he went to the university of pittsburgh. Now, nobody had really thought much of the university of pittsburgh and its involvement in research or its medical school, but the school was trying to change and it really saw salk as somebody who could sort of put this medical school on the map. So off he went to this sort of place that certainly didnt have the prestige, say, as the Rockefeller Institute. Well, thats one side of the race. The other side, of course, is albert sabin. Who was albert sabin . Similar story, different story . Hes also a russian immigrant and he was jewish. So they kind of had a similar background. And he also he was more established as a scientist in his later years than salk was. Prof. Mcmillen he was actually born in poland. But eastern europe. Right. And he was indeed an immigrant and came to this country when he was about 15 years old. Got a decent education, began to really be interested in polio when he was fairly young, and was at the Rockefeller Institute. So he was indeed one of the privileged scientists to be there. And then, after being there only six years, again, he sort of did the unthinkable, just the way salk had done. He left and he went where . University of cincinnati. Like, what . Again, he saw opportunities there. Where he could really do the kind of work he wanted. So, in looking at these two scientists, what did you what sense did you get what role do you think the foundation played in funding these men and in creating a situation that sort of exacerbated the tension between the two men . What did you think of the foundation and the role it played . The foundation was giving money to both men to research. So throughout the book, i kind of felt like salk, he was kind of always determined to get some fame from finding this vaccine. So he was determined to he was going well, sabin on the other hand, he was more trying to work with other researchers more than salk was. Prof. Mcmillen so you would call sabin more of a pure researcher . Yeah. Prof. Mcmillen but both men got money. But who got more money . Salk got more money, i think because of his personal relationship with Basil Oconnor. They became close friends, i think. Prof. Mcmillen they did. So the foundation was able to really influence the direction the research took by emphasizing the killed virus versus the live virus. Prof. Mcmillen what is so interesting, in a way, in the role of this foundation was that early on, you had Basil Oconnor first of all, salk was chosen by the foundation to attend this meeting in denmark where all of those who were studying polio gathered. Sabin was there, too. But salk was chosen, in a sense, by the foundation. Hand chosen to attend this meeting. And then on the return trip, as they were traveling home via ship, he met oconnor and they became fast friends. They really developed a very, very positive relationship. So they hit it off. And so many scientists would have said at this point, salk was becoming the celebrity scientist. He seemed to be sort of the handpicked, not heir apparent, but certainly the man who the foundation felt would be the best to develop the vaccine. He began to get publicity. Time magazine did stories on him. So he becomes not just a scientist, but in a sense, the public certainly seemed to know about him. Salk called him the kitchen chemist, i think. Talk about a putdown. How did you feel about these two men . Did you get a sense of either one you liked better than the other or did you sense oshinsky showed any kind of favoritism in looking at these two incredible scientists . Or is it a tossup, get rid of both of them . [laughter] i kind of felt like, at first, salk was portrayed as the underdog. He wasnt as established in the Research Community and he hadnt received as much recognition, but then when he gained celebrity with the american public, it kind of switched. So he kind of portrayed himself as more of the people scientist and then sabin is, like, the scientist scientist. Prof. Mcmillen the scientists scientist. Which man would you rather have dinner with . [laughter] thats a hard one, isnt it . What were the most negative characteristics of each man . What did you sense of salk . Josh . I feel like the worst part was neither was willing to recognize the success of the other. Salk was successful earlier when he first developed the vaccine. Sabin was constantly attacking him saying his vaccine would never work and wouldnt be best for the country. That was pretty deplorable, as soon as sabin was successful and had the more widely spread vaccines used across the world, salk was still attacking him saying his was better. Neither was willing to prof. Mcmillen and they made this public. This was not a private dispute. All of this seemed to be quite public, not just hidden in letters or Something Like that. What else . Do you remember anything about known. s deivdrive to be he would like take peoples names off of papers. There was that one paper he said he lost then put his name at the beginning. Prof. Mcmillen wasnt that incredible . His assistants wrote that paper. And then he supposedly lost it. Oh my gosh, i found it, and then his name was at the top. That just like totally unacceptable. And then sabin sort of did a similar thing. I think it was with cox . I think they said, oh, yeah, lets, like, share some samples. Because they were both working on the live vaccine. And so i think it was cox sent over some samples of whatever he had and never received anything back from sabin. So i think they both kind of had that quality where they were just doing everything for themselves. Both of them thought they could do it the best. Prof. Mcmillen yes. They were both pretty impossible, i think. And its interesting, sort of the conclusion of the book, oshinsky says like both of these men should have won a nobel prize for medicine, considering what each one of them developed. But, no. Never happened. And i think oshinsky hints that indeed part of the reason was that they were so awful to one another. Sabin always had the support of the Scientific Community. Salk had the support of the public. He got all this public adulation. Salk got the adulation of the Scientific Community. And the Scientific Community made sure that salk never became a member of the National Foundation of science. They kept him out of that organization. Lets move onto to what i think is a really interesting issue. That is the whole ethical issues surrounding the testing of the polio vaccine. What do you think about the testing of the vaccine on orphans, mentally challenged children, on prisoners . How does that strike you . Is that ethical . Is that right to do . Do you think this was acceptable . I think its really inhumane. Because if youre talking about children especially, they dont have the mental capacity to speak for themselves and to say, no, i dont want this to be tested on me. And if youre using prisoners, theyre obviously considered to be like secondclass citizens because theyre in a prison. So if something should happen to them, theyre not going to get an adequate level of care. So they were basically considering these people to be disposable and saying, well, if something happens to them, then well just find more. Prof. Mcmillen as you said, many of these children didnt have parents around. Nobody to really say yes or no. Theyre in institutions. They were already suffering huge problems. And yet, they were chosen to be the first recipients of the salk vaccine. Because jonas salk was moving in a positive direction, his killed virus vaccine seemed to be succeeding. But he had to try it on human beings. I mean, that was the big issue. Its enough to try it on monkeys or something, but youve got to try it on humans. So here this would never happen today. The care we take today. Everybody fearing a lawsuit or whatever. This would never happen today, in terms of just using what, in a sense, was a population of people who basically had no say about what was happening to them. So, did those tests, they proved positive. Then in 1954, salk knew that he had to try his vaccine on Elementary School children. And here, indeed, parents are involved in this decision. He had Something Like, what, 1. 3 million children in Elementary School who got his vaccine. Now, before we get into some of the problems that happened, why would parents why would parents okay this when this vaccine had only been tested on a very, very select, small group of people . They said that the killed virus couldnt cause polio, and so i think for a lot of people they were like, oh, well, if its not a live virus and just inject it into my kid and if it doesnt work, it is not going to hurt them and i think it is a point they played up, it cant really hurt but it can only help. I think that sort of was incentive for a lot of people to participate. I think there was a desperation, what can we do to avoid our children adding sick . Like a personal thing for them. Prof. Mcmillen everybody knew what polo did. They had seen the pictures of children in iron lungs and braces on their legs. This continued fear was enormous in this country. Here is a possible prevention of your child getting polio. And the foundation did what, the foundation for infantile paralysis, what was its stance on testing this virus . Did it caution people . Oconnor said it is a privilege. Your children are among the privileged to be able to have this virus. There were a few cautionary remarks. There was a man named walter winchell, a huge radio personality. He had been fed this shows you the nasty stuff going on among scientists. He had been fed information by another scientist who said this vaccine has not been properly tested, they should not be using it. Walter winchell went on the radio and said, parents, watch out, this is probably not a good thing. To that, salk said, hes looking for publicity. You know, he doesnt know what hes talking about. It was interesting, too. This wasnt in response to the testing on children, but doctor spok, who is the child care expert of this time, was also telling parents to calm down, that perhaps the foundation was exaggerating the threat of this disease and overselling the problem. But, in any case, they moved ahead. They tested the salk vaccine on these children. They had some placebos. I mean, they did this very, very carefully, supposedly. It took a year for them to finally get the results after they gave these children the vaccine. The results were, of course, positive. A great moment in american medical history. The vaccine, salk vaccine worked. So, the foundation knew that it had to make a huge deal of this. I mean, finally, they had the answer. So they held this event at the university of michigan in ann arbor on october 12, 1955. People gathered, the press was there. Edward murrow, a tv personality was there. This was a huge, huge event with this incredible news. A man named Thomas Francis stood up. He was representing the foundation. He gave this rambling 98 minute talk on the glories of this discovery. Salk spoke. The today show revealed the news that next morning. But some things went wrong. Shortly there after, within a day or two and within a few days. What were the negatives after that great this was really salks moment of glory. He was thrilled. The foundation was thrilled. Then things happened. What went wrong . There are a couple outbreaks of polio from the cutter laboratories. Prof. Mcmillen well get into that in a minute. We have some negative results like, oh my gosh, this this this vaccine caused polio. This is supposed to be a dead virus. This is supposed to not cause polio. You have the outbreak of a few cases. What else happened that was upsetting to salk . He never thanked his research team. Prof. Mcmillen salk got up there and gave this talk. It was as if he, alone, had been the only one who had done anything on this research. Yet, he had several assistants that played a huge role in the discovery. They were sitting there. You dont do this in the science world. You have seen articles. They always have like ten authors that have engaged in this research. Salk took total credit. His assistants couldnt believe it. That was an incredibly disappointing moment. What else do you remember what salk said that elizabeth . He totally undercut the effectiveness of the results were they said that, i think , the vaccine was 70 or 80 effective. He said how he had been working on his next vaccine, it was going to be 100 effective. I think he managed to sort of anger the Science Community saying undermining his own results and angering the American People who kind of felt betrayed by him not having, you know, why hadnt he waited to send out another vaccine instead of trying this less effective one and wait a year to do the more effective . Prof. Mcmillen exactly. This was supposed to be absolutely foolproof. It was supposed to work. Then you have salk almost immediately saying, the vaccine i just developed is better than the one we used. Wait a minute, my child just had this vaccine. That certainly was a disconcerning moment for those. All right. The first one of the first big problems that happened afterwards its been a success. You have had, you know, hundreds of thousands of children vaccinated in this country and now you have millions more waiting to get the vaccine. What happened . What was the problem that affected the distribution of the vaccine . Was there a distribution planned . The government and the foundation really hadnt explored how they are going to produce so much of the vaccine to supply enough for the American Population that needed it. There was a public outcry. They were worried they wouldnt be able to have their children vaccinated. It was turned on the government and the foundation like, you should have handled this already. Prof. Mcmillen nobody had a plan. Nobody thought okay, you have a vaccine, how is everybody going to get it, assuming its successful . People were upset. They have invested their emotions and money into the foundation and what its trying to achieve. Suddenly, they are confronted with the fact theres not a distribution plan. The head of h. E. W. Fumbled around. She didnt know what to do. What was the problem with the government distributing the vaccine . Doesnt it seem like a natural way to go, for the government to take charge, to step in . What is the problem with that . Why not the government . Socialism was a hot topic in the 1950s. Prof. Mcmillen socialized medicine, oh my gosh, we are going to be like canada. This is not the role of the federal government. In fact, the Drug Companies were deadset against this. It was like, this is something for private companies to take charge of. The government should not step in. It created enormous problems. It also made the public angry. Physicians stepped into the whole thing, they said, actually, you shouldnt be giving these vaccines in Elementary School. They should be done in a Doctors Office for the doctors to make money. It created a horribly complicated situation in which there had been no plan for distribution and ultimately, he resigned. It was such a bad situation. Then the cutter lab disaster, which was what . What was the cutter lab disaster . Go ahead. Manufactured the vaccine improperly and it caused a lot of people to get sick, a lot of children got sick. Prof. Mcmillen we had several Companies Developing the vaccine, all right . This one lab in berkeley, california, cutter lab, had developed the vaccine. What went wrong . They discovered 400,000 there were 400,000 vaccines done by cutter lab . Somehow a live virus got into the bottles they were using. Supposedly cutter laboratories were the only ones who used these bottles to give out the vaccine so somehow or someway, a live virus got in there and affected a bunch of people. Prof. Mcmillen this was definitely well, part of the problem was with testing. How much testing had been done on these vaccines . One day. One day at this point. Again, the rush to get this out, the rush to have this done, they tested these vaccines only one day. They sort of ignored the ones that didnt pass muster. Oh, its okay, well use them anyway. Before this, they had taken four weeks to test this vaccine. Again, this was a rush and this had to be done right away. Now, oconnor was furious. What he did, interestingly, he blamed those working for the live virus vaccine. You know, he thought there was some kind of plot. That somebody came into the lab or something and tried to undermine the situation. It was really, really quite incredible. All right. Well, interest now turned. Now that salks vaccine was under question, americans began to turn toward sabin and his live virus vaccine. So, again, you know, using a different approach to solving this problem of polio. But again, sabin needed to test his vaccine and where did he do it . Where was sabin able to test his vaccine . In the soviet union. Polio was becoming a huge problem in the soviet union, cases were rising. The soviets invited salk and sabin to come to their country. Salk didnt accept the invitation, sabin did. The soviet government decided to use the live virus vaccine to test on, not to test, but use on 10 million soviet children. Thats exactly what they did. Using the power of the soviet government, they tested on 10 million children and it was basically a success. So, this was, again, a huge a huge breakthrough. We only have a few more minutes. Let me quickly summarize and end this discussion. By 1956, the number of polio cases were declining in this country. It was the vaccines were working. There was still some real debate about salk versus sabin. Nobody had quite made a decision. That would happen in a couple years. Salk decided he needed a new project. Ok, he had done his research on polio. What was his new project . Anybody get that far in the book . What did he want . What did he need . He did start studying aids. He wanted to open up a new lab. Prof. Mcmillen he wanted his own research institute. He went to the university of pittsburgh, where he had been, and he tried to convince them this would be a good thing. They demanded they would have some kind of control over this. Salk wanted total control. So, he left the university of pittsburgh and he went to la jolla, california. I dont know if you have ever been to la jolla, but its a jewel of a city. You know, small city, right on the pacific ocean. He got the city to contribute land, i mean, on this bluff, overlooking the ocean. You couldnt ask for a nicer location. He got the foundation to provide 15 million. He hired the most preeminent architect in the country to do the design for this institute. So, he now has his, in a sense, he has exactly what he wanted. Obviously, expenses were high. The foundation began to withdraw its support from salk and move on to other things and oconnor died. Salk, himself, divorced his first wife. He then married the former picassos former mistress. He began to dress in elegant clothes and he had his good life in california. He did engage in aids research. By then, he was a very, very different person. Some of this rivalry continues. There are all kinds of other issues we havent had time to discuss. I wanted to mention briefly that the polio remains a problem in this world, but one that has been substantially reduced. First of all, in this country, there are some 400,000 survivors of polio. I know of two people at davidson, who work at davidson, who had polio. Oshinsky says some people are starting to really suffer from whats called polio syndrome, which is a result of their muscles gradually weakening. Polio, you know, even though they have survived polio, they are having some impact that has remained. But, he also says the polio survivors tend to be type a overachievers, perhaps like a roosevelt. That, of course, is a good thing. Polio is still in the news. It was actually, there was a News Coverage of this last week on npr. Because a reporter was talking about how polio is on the verge of being wiped off this earth. Sort of the way smallpox was years ago. Polio will probably no longer be with us in a few years. Last year, there were only 223 cases worldwide in three countries, afghanistan, pakistan, and nigeria. The World Health Organization and the bill and Melinda Gates foundation are working on this in a major way, providing huge amounts of money to eradicate it forever. Their goal is 2018, there will be no polio in the world. The only bad thing, you may remember a few weeks ago, there were nine polio workers, women working in pakistan, who were gunned down and killed. Just a horrible, horrible, horrible situation. But, the other thing i wanted to mention is that good things can happen from a history book. Beside all you learned, i did read that bill gates read this book when it first came out. He loved it. He was so inspired, he decided his foundation would, indeed, take on polio as a major, a major focus for his vast amounts of money. So that sort of prompted him to try to move toward eradicating polio worldwide. We are almost there today. I always get people that ask me about the march of dimes today. I still get mail from the march of dimes. What it works on now, obviously not polio, is birth defects in premature babies. They are still doing good things and raising money, but for Something Different than polio. Thats it for our disease of the day. Thursday, you all should have read the essays for peer editing and mark them up significantly. We will have Group Interaction with peer editing on thursday. Ok . Ok. Thank you. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] listen to lectures on history on the go by streaming our podcasts anywhere, anytime. You are watching American History tv, only on cspan3. Weeknights, we are featuring American History tv programs and a preview of what is available every weekend on cspan3. Monday, a look at the 100th anniversary of womens coverage. The 36thnessee became and last state needed to ratify the 19th amendment, granting women the right to vote. We feature a conversation hosted by the womens Suffrage Centennial commission with hillary clinton, elaine weiss, and carl hayden. That is followed by a forum on the 19th amendment hosted by all in together which includes remarks by nancy pelosi in condoleezza rice. Watch monday at 8 00 eastern. Enjoy our American History tv this weekend every weekend on cspan3. Of this summers national convention, we will show acceptance speeches by to 1960. From 1948 the footage appears courtesy of nbc news archives. Here is a preview. [applause] that because they are wrong and we will write we are right and i will prove it to you in a few minutes. [applause] convention is meant to express the will and reaffirm the beliefs of the Democratic Party. There have been differences of opinion and that is the democratic way. Those differences have been settled by a majority of voters, as they should be. Now it is time for us to eat the common enemy. That is up to you. 28 the common enemy. Common enemy. E victory has become a habit of our party. It has been elected four times in succession and i am convinced it will be elected a fifth time next november. [applause] the people know the Democratic Party is the Peoples Party and the Republican Party is the party of special interests and it always has been and always will be. [applause] the record of the Democratic Party is written in the accomplishments of the last 16 years. , dont need to repeat them they have been placed before this convention by the keynote speaker, the candidate for Vice President. Watch more of the acceptance speeches this sunday at 8 00, 5 00 p. M. Pacific, on American History tv. Warren burger was chief justice from 1969 to 1986. Next, a professor talks about his life and legacy. Mr. Sexton was law clerk to the chief justice and later served as nyus president and law school dean. The Supreme Court Historical Society hosted this event in the Supreme Court chamber. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the officers and trustees of the Supreme Court Historical Society, welcome to our 42nd annual lecture. Before we do anything else, i will ask everyone to take out their phones and turn them off. Even on silent mode, they will interfere with the sound system here in the court. I am greg joseph, president of the society. Welcome. We are delighted to have you here today