"No single event impressed me more than what happened on April 12, 1955, the day the results of the evaluation of the 1954 poliomyelitis vaccine field trials were announced. As I was making my rounds that afternoon, I was taken aback to find a banner stuck on the doors of the respirator wards that read: 'POLIO VACCINE WORKS.' The patients had asked the volunteers, who published an in house newsletter entitled 'The Toomeyville Gazette,' to spread the good news."
Robert M. Eiben, MD; 1955; Toomey Pavilion, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio
Polio. Once one of the most feared of diseases, today...
Tag Archives: Pubic health
Medicine is not practiced in a vacuum; cultural and geographical context matter, and the community shapes both innovation and practice. Cleveland’s history reveals the remarkable collaboration of medical institutions and the public—it does not rest only in the hands of physicians or with distant hospital systems. Now, as then, health is everyone’s concern.
But how do we engage the public? And how can we make it plain that the public has rights--and power--to shape medicine? Historically, individuals had a greater share in shaping their care out of necessity. The Dittrick Museum's collection of herbals and medical remedies is a testament...