Do you remember measles and polio?

[Dilbertian]

I remember the children's lido at the park being shut for several months because of polio, and either my class or the whole infant school being shut for several weeks because of measles. Children with measles were quarantined at home, as were their siblings and any friends they had played with just before becoming ill.

This is what living with covid is going to be like. We will take the precautions we can, and respond to infection spikes. We now have 2 or 3 generations of adults who grew up with very little dangerous infectious disease around them. What they think is abnormal, or the new normal, is normal. This is what was normal for their parents and grandparents.

Surely polio and measles are only childhood diseases because by the time you were elderly, you had either immunity or were dead.
Covid is a new disease, which is why it can attack all ages.
I worked for a bloke who had had polio. I guess he's late 60s now. He had problems with his legs and feet. I wonder if the teacher with the scars had surgery to try and minimise the issues?

@ListeningQuietly

Whynotme Smallpox vaccinations were standard well into the 60's and 70's in many countries

I had the smallpox vaccine as a child - have a really large scar on my arm from it but my sister, 18 months younger than me didn't have it.

When I was a child in the 50s a neighbour had polio. My mother did not let us go in paddling pools in the park due to polio though I don't remember pools being closed.
My brother and I had measles, chicken pox and mumps. We stayed off school for two weeks but they never closed classes or schools. One of my friends had scarlet fever but that was unusual. We never knew that these illnesses could be serious or fatal.
A family member who is a nurse had TB in the 90s, which was a shock to us all and we had to be checked as contacts.
I also had Hong Kong flu in the late 60s. Despite all this, serious infection diseases had become something unexpected in the UK and Covid is affecting all our futures.

@ListeningQuietly with polio the nerve damage would cause the muscles to spasm and contract, so your legs/back would literally curl up. People were encouraged to try and stretch their childrens limbs daily (v painful) to keep them flexible. If that didnt work there would be operations to free up muscles/tendons so limbs could return to a normal extension so that walking with calipers and crutches was possible.

I'm 58 and had measles as a child. Mum thought I was going to die I was so ill. I have very little memory of it.

There was a boy in my class who had a leg brace due to polio. Didn't impede his football playing though! I have a distinct, and fond, memory of missing some school to have a polio booster and being bought sweets afterwards.

I had smallpox vaccine in 70s but that was because we were going on holiday to Greece I seem to remember

I had measles when I was 4. Can't remember much but I know I was upset I couldn't go to school.

Porcupine
I know what polio does.
I stuffed envelopes for the Stop Polio campaign as a kid.

My aunt who is in her 70s has one leg shorter than the other due to childhood polio.
I'm mid 40s and remember most of my primary school class being off with measles, in fact the majority of children in my school had it over one winter. I don't recall any children being seriously ill with it. I've never had measles apparently I was vaccinated as a baby. They didn't close our school.
More recently my friend's then 8 month old baby was admitted to hospital with measles. He is fine now but they had a scary couple of days with him.

I have a friend who had Polio as a child.
He was 7 when he was sent to the Sanatorium and he spent a long time in an iron lung. He became good pals with the boy in the next door lung.
He now has scoliosis of the spine but does go jogging. Now, aged 70+
he talks about how his parents 'never came to see me, not once'
Shortly after he got better he was sent to board at Prep school. Sad.

I got a v bad dose of chicken pox aged 12 in the early 1980's. Passed it to my Dad where it became a very nasty dose of shingles.
The GP who came to the house thought it was Smallpox and wanted to put the whole street in quarantine - he called the local Police station and they were discussing how to do it when a more senior medic arrived ruled out Smallpox - so the fear was still very real.

All my brothers and sisters had measles but I managed not to catch it (or had such a mild case my Mum didn't notice). Luckily they all survived without complications.
My exhusband has a damaged muscle in one eye as a complication of measles.
I don't know anyone personally who had polio but I remember nursing a patient who was paralysed in her legs due to catching polio as a child.

I had measles twice as a child (yes, I know you’re not supposed to get it twice). I remember the doctor visiting more than once in the night.

I remember some of my mum’s friends had polio.

I am 44. I went to school with someone who had polio. He used crutches and struggled to walk.

I had a workman who had polio as a child. His back was very bent/hunched as a result

Is it Mary Berry that had polio?

I think so @dementedpixie

@ Hemlock
I'm the same age as you and also had measles when I was very young.I don't remember being unwell as I was only around 2 years old at the time ,but my mum told me I was very ill.I had just recovered from the measles when I contracted mumps😟

Mary Berry
Ian Dury
Lord Litchfield
polio did not care

German Measles is a catastrophic disease if you are pregnant (Rubella, the R in MMR)
there are many many adults in lifelong sheltered accommodation who are "German Measles babies"

if COVID makes the rich world more respectful of viruses
GOOD

@ListeningQuietly sorry, I must have mixed you up with the poster who was asking why scars.

I am a German Measles’s baby:

I am deaf in one ear, and had to have a corrective operation on one eye, this operation needs repeating now as the correction I had aged 7 has now weakened. Not available on the NHS any longer and now classed as a private surgery to the tune of £4,700!!!

That being said I consider myself lucky as things could have been so very much worse. I also had a classmate who had to wear a leg brace due to polio, I also had a teacher who had suffered polio as a child.

I had measles as a child in the sixties.
I don't remember it , but I was v poorly and nearly ended up in hospital apparently!
Horrible disease.

What scars would polio leave ?

My grandmother had polio as a child, spent a lot of her childhood in heavy metal calipers/walking aids and had some surgeries (one surgeon wanted to amputate her legs). I would imagine many people had scars like hers from the treatments of the day.

I had the polio sugarlump but measles was an annual event when I was a child. I had no hesitation vaccinating my children having seen some of the life changing damage caused by measles.

My dad and his sister both had measles in childhood. Both lost significant amounts of hearing and became profoundly deaf later in life.

Not me but I remember my dad telling me it wasn't unusual to go back to school after school holidays to find one child wouldn't be coming back due to dying from measles

Chi6kdren did occasionally get measles when I was a child but I think they were mild cases in children who had been vaccinated. Mumps was common.

A had an (great) Aunt who was in a wheelchair from her childhood until she died in her 70s after having polio. They'd been very poor as children and my Grandfather became a fairly well to do businessman specifically motivated by need to support her because there was no other help for her. He paid her a salary every year until she died, although she never worked for him.