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.

I remember all the childhood illnesses, we used to be sent to ‘parties’ to deliberately try and get us to catch measles/mumps/rubella or whatever 😳
I had whooping cough too, vividly remember throwing up where I had coughed so much 😢, it was horrific.
I knew three children who’d had polio too.

I think it's the opposite @Allmyarseandpeggymartin. I think it's people who have never seen what a disease can do who are more relaxed about it.

I had measles, German measles (rubella), mumps, chicken pox and whooping cough.

These weee all considered childhood illnesses.
Don’t think there was any vaccines for these things so the younger you were the more you were encouraged to get them over with.

The older you were the more horrible the illness. So not just worse for the elderly but those who were in the older years in primary onwards.
I think I had everything by the time I was 7 years old and remember measles because I had to be in a darkened room and couldn’t watch tv as it was considered to be dangerous for my eyes.
I remember mumps. I woke up with a lot of pain just below my ears

And chickenpox because I couldn’t itch the spots and being bathed in calamine lotion which did nothing for the itch.

My 18 month old brother had measles when I was 6 weeks old which left me with lifelong immunity. I'm 67 now .
My 18 month old daughter had measles when her brother was 6 weeks old. He too has had lifelong immunity and are both now mid forties . I don't know a single person who has had polio

Should add everyone in school was in the same boat and we all went to measle, German measles and chicken pox parties where we would gather around the sick child and their mother would come up with a glass of lemonade and after the sick one had drank from the glass it was handed round so everyone else had a sip.

I don’t ever remember anyone being really ill or having long term problems and in children they were always deemed to be considered as in children minor childhood illnesses that you got because if you got older and got infected it would be more dangerous the older you got

I was born in 1955. My Grandfather had had polio as a child and wore calipers but I don't remember anyone actually having it. Measles was a common childhood disease, though, almost everyone had it. My own daughter, born 1980, had measles as a baby before her vaccination was due but fortunately had no lasting ill effects.

Where did you grow up @Oliversmumsarmy? I dont remember ever hearing about people being so blase about measles.

Yes. I was very young. Had measles, (german measlesn chickenpox and possibly mumps) as it was all common when I was a kid as there was no vaccination programme.

I had schoolfriends whose respective fathers were polio and tb survivors.

Porcupineinwaiting slum area of a northern city in the very early 60s.

I think most areas at the time had the same attitude.
I remember everyone at school had these illnesses and it was considered just part of childhood.
There were no vaccines so the best you could do was make sure your child got them early enough that meant they were not really a problem.
I don’t remember anyone being affected by them.

Not personally but I’ve got a friend left disabled by polio. He’s only in his 60s so not that old really

But I do agree with you OP. Imagine having to live with the fear of smallpox, truly horrific and way worse than Covid. But people did learn to live with it and as far as I know life between outbreaks was normal.’

I had measles when I was 2. Don't remember anything about it and thankfully I had no after effects from it. A lady I worked with was left partially deaf after having measles as a child.

I grew up in Ireland and reading up on it, vaccinations against measles did not start until 1985 so it must have been a pretty common childhood illness until then (I was born in 1979).

Cousin eventually died from polio complications in 2007 - I can’t remember exactly what, I’m not sure any of them family do remember now but he was quite ill with it . I think I had a patient who had post polio effects at work once too .

Never met anyone my age who’s had measles, one who’s had mumps but he’s very ill anyway .

I have cared for adults with complications from those illnesses though eg encephalitis, guiilian barre, congenital rubella syndrome and brain damage from whooping cough . Congenital rubella absolutely awful - woman was deafblind with very little speech, severe developmental delay, and malformation in both hands/arms . Same with whooping cough brain damage - pre illness she was fine, now needs 24/7 care . Very scary and very sad .

I was born in early 60s and was not allowed the vaccine when they bought it in 68 because of gentic febrile convulsions. I caught measles probably around 1970. I was really ill for a week, so weak i couldnt walk. Measles destroys your immune system for about 3 years after and i had really bad tonilitis for months on end in the following year.
I remember plaques in library books which said you were not allowed to return them if you had measles in the household. My parents got a letter from the government/NHS about quarantine. Children who got measles were kept in dark rooms because of worries about eyesight.

I then caught german measles from my mother in mid 70s a few weeks before i was due rubella jab, i think it was one of the last epidemics in the UK

Polio was rife when I was a child. Pictures of people in iron lungs were all over the papers. I had measles and was very poorly - all the children got it, despite measures to try and curb the spread.

Smallpox was around too - my brother and I had the inoculation as my father was on and off ships from abroad. There was no prevention programme. Unfortunately I got cowpox (which is the basis for the inoculation) and was ill for weeks.

It is wonderful that my GC do not have to fear these illnesses now.

I had the smallpox jab, but I think my sister, born 2 years later, didn't.

I was vaccinated against measles, but MMR didn't exist till I was an adult.

When I was 11, all the girls had to line up outside the head's office for rubella injections, and at 15 for BCG - one friend didn't have it, because she'd reacted to the Heaf test. Her mother had been a nurse in a TB hospital early in her career, so it was assumed that was the link.

I remember having pre-school boosters - I was okay with the injections, but I had a screaming tantrum about polio, because it was on a sugar cube. Then they gave me another sugar cube as a treat after - I didn't want any sugar cubes! I remember Mum talking about swimming pools being closed in her childhood because of polio, but by my childhood, it was mostly a thing of the past, at least in terms of widespread fear. It was still around, but not like the epidemics of the '50s.

Mum was very good at us getting vaccinations, particularly tetanus, as we lived on a farm, but I think their childhood experiences meant they valued vaccines, the removal of one fear. I have been vaccinated against quite a few other things too, from having travelled round the world.

I don't remember any childhood diseases, except chickenpox. I never had mumps, measles, etc, and I don't remember anyone at school having it, though I think I had scarlet fever age 2 (don't remember it, though.) Chicken pox we had when I was 7, and lots of people at school had it - I think we had been taken to a chicken pox party. I had spots everywhere and I remember going to the loo was like passing cut glass because of the spots being everywhere. My younger sister had it worse than me. But that was the only childhood disease I remember, and I remember reading school stories written in the mid-20th century and they were always missing the start of school for being in quarantine for mumps, measles, etc, or ending up in isolation in the san with something. It's remarkable how quickly things changed, really, in just 20 or 30 years or so.

I think CV-19 will probably become endemic like many childhood diseases. I think it's a good reminder that we used to have to deal with, but many had forgotten.

I remember having whooping cough - that was grim. And one of my DDs had it - she is an adult with children of her own now, but she still has a hopeless cough dating from then. She was 4 and I remember her being ill for weeks and weeks - she would cough and cough - and eventually produce a cupful of phlegm like plasticine - every 20 minutes day and night - the whole family was wrecked. A year later and she could not run without stopping to cough and throw up.

As soon as the whooping cough ended she got chicken pox badly - the spots were everywhere - up her bum, just everywhere. I remember her saying to me in the middle of the night "Why doesn't god make me better?" - why indeed.

@Porcupineinwaiting

I think it's the opposite *@Allmyarseandpeggymartin*. I think it's people who have never seen what a disease can do who are more relaxed about it.

It's not so much whether older generations are blasé or younger generations are panicked, or vice-versa, but that younger generations are not familiar with the concept of living with infectious illnesses around. It's no longer part of a relatively comfortable, relatively affluent society.

@Dilbertian Beautifully put and exactly what I meant.

This thread is oddly comforting.

Very timely thread, OP. Thank you.

I was born in the 50s and can remember having measles. I had to lie in a darkened room and one morning couldn’t at first open my eyes as they were glued together with ?gunge. One child we knew went on get meningitis but made a complete recovery.

Polio jabs came in when I was 6. DM used to say that polio, aka infantile paralysis, was what all parents dreaded. I knew of a child who died from polio. Good old days .....

Reading these comments gave me the chills. Absolutely awful. I can't even imagine how parents felt back in the small pox/ polio days.

My father had polio in 1946 and it contributed to his cardiovascular illness decades and decades later as he couldn’t walk in his latter years. He had recovered some mobility but could never run properly again or ride a bike. He missed out on university as a young man.

When he died someone told us they remembered seeing my grandmother pushing him in a wheelchair when he was a teenager and it made me want to weep at the utter unfairness of it.

Polio is a vile disease.

I had measles in the 1960s and remember the doctor visiting me and feeling very ill in bed.

I think that parents in my age group, who remember some of these dreadful illnesses, are probably the most pro vaccination. IMO the anti vaxxers have been sheltered from the fear that these diseases had for parents back in the day.

Vaccines are great. But always have risk of side effects. I knew a child who was blind and another brain damaged as a consequence of vaccines side effects and there are still plenty of victims of thalidomide around here too.

Thalidomide wasn't a vaccine. It was a medicine used for morning sickness. And the issue was that it hadn't been thoroughly tested-it's one of the reasons why we have such stringent testing in the UK.
And actually Thalidomide is still used as a medication-I think in treating epilepsy, though I might be wrong.

I had measles and mumps when I was 3yo. The main thing I remember about measles was sitting feeling very smug while dm told dsis (older) that her birthday party would have to be postponed. I was fully aware that I had caused great irritation and couldn't be blamed for it.
However I believe I was quite ill for a while, and was also quite ill with mumps as they couldn't get my temperature down. I'd only shortly recovered from pneumonia and a long stay in hospital, so I think there was probably that at the back of it.

my Dad, who would now be 98 were he still alive, was a Public Health Inspector, I don't think those roles exist any more? Anyway, he was always telling us terrible tales of the outbreaks of disease he dealt with. He was very, very, pro vaccination, and we had everything going. A couple of his friends walked with calipers and sticks, having had polio. I remember our household being in isolation as he had contact with someone who had "Green Monkey Disease" (remember it clearly, as it was such a funny name). He regularly brought fleas back home too, he saw some terrible diseases, and living conditions.