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HE PURAPURA MARARA SCATTERED SEEDS
Joan Saunders: Polio stories - personal recollections of the polio epidemic of the 1940s and 1950s
This recollection was contributed by Joan Saunders, Dunedin. Joan was an orthopaedic nurse in England.
"I worked through polio. Does anyone remember the "Denis Browne Boots"?
The Dennis Brown bar device is named after Sir Denis Browne, an Australian-born surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London who was considered the father of paediatric surgery in the United Kingdom.
Joan also recalls that treatment included antibiotics, which made a huge difference to recovery outcomes. Before that there was only "M&B" tablets, which she remembers as the forerunner to antibiotics. Joan remembers they were called that because they had "M" and "B" stamped on them.
The sulphonamide M&B 693 was developed in Britain and first prescribed in 1938 to treat pneumonia. The most famous patient saved by the drug was British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who contracted pneumonia at the height of the Second World War. The drug most likely saved his life and the success of the treatment was widely reported in the press.
As a nurse, Joan recalls the value of milk for children, and recalls the introduction of Pasteurisation, which helped reduce incidences of tuberculosis before antibiotics in the 1940's.
DateMay 2022
School of Physiotherapy, University of Otago,
https://otago.ourheritage.ac.nz/items/show/7975
Polio oral history project: Nancy Blackstock, WhanganuiStoriesPolio stories - personal recollections of the polio epidemic of the 1940s and 1950sSubjectDunedin City - PoliomyelitisPoliomyelitisPoliomyelitis - New ZealandPoliomyelitis - New Zealand - HistoryPostpoliomyelitis syndrome - New ZealandKay Mercer