Poliomyelitis in Bristol, 1949

During the warm dry summer and autumn of 1947 the prevalence of acute anterior poliomyelitis increased in Britain to an extent never before recorded. Cases were widespread but unevenly distributed over the country ; and some areas, notably the mountains of Wales and Scotland, showed no epidemic incidence of the disease. -The greatest number of cases occurred in August, and the curve was still high above normal in November (see Table I). The Bristol district had a share of this disease, and many of the cases were admitted to Ham Green Hospital. Infantile paralysis holds an exalted place in the popular imagination and in 1947 journalism did not fail to make it the most talked of, and probably the most dreaded, disease in Britain. As a result