In the mid-20th century, community spaces like swimming pools and sporting events became a source of anxiety for parents who were frightened by the rampant spread of poliovirus. Their concerns weren’t ...

This story is from The Pulse, a weekly health and science podcast. In the summer of 1952, Vivi Ebert who just 12 years old, was taken to Blegdam Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark, where she was ...

Martha Lillard needed a large respirator called an iron lung to recover from polio, which she caught in 1953. She still uses a form of the device at nights. (Courtesy of Martha Lillard) On June 8, ...

A Texan man dubbed “Polio Paul” is one of the last people in the world who still has an iron lung. Paul Alexander, 75, has been largely confined to the contraption since he contracted the deadly ...

DALLAS -- Paul Alexander, who spent the vast majority of the past 70 years in an iron lung and defied expectations by becoming a lawyer and author, died Monday afternoon at the age of 78, according to ...

On June 8, 1953, Martha Lillard celebrated her fifth birthday with a party at an amusement park in Oklahoma. A little over a week later, she woke up with a sore throat and a pain in her neck. Her ...