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A physical therapist assists two small children wearing leg braces performing physical therapy with a bar and a beach ball.
Children recovering from polio doing physical therapy (1963).

Polio epidemics begin to emerge in full force.

1916

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Children recovering from polio doing physical therapy (1963).

The 1916 epidemic causes widespread panic. Thousands of city dwellers flee to nearby mountain resorts, movie theaters are closed, meetings are canceled, and public gatherings are almost nonexistent. Children are warned not to drink from water fountains and told to avoid amusement parks, swimming pools, and beaches.

Medical treatment is limited to symptom relief, as there is little understood about how polio is transmitted or what specific measures can prevent infection.

From 1916 into the following decades, a polio epidemic will occur each summer in at least one part of the country, with the most serious occurring in the 1940s and 1950s.