Elegy for a Disease: A Personal and Cultural History of Polio

by Anne Finger

During the first half of the twentieth century, epidemics of polio caused fear and panic, killing some who contracted the disease, leaving others with varying degrees of paralysis. The defeat of polio became a symbol of modern technology's ability to reduce human suffering. But while the story of polio may have seemed to end on April 12, 1956, when the Salk vaccine was declared a success, millions of people worldwide are polio survivors.
In this dazzling memoir, Anne Finger interweaves her personal experience with polio with a social and cultural history of the disease. Anne contracted polio as a very young child, just a few months before the Salk vaccine became widely available. After six months of hospitalization, she returned to her family's home in upstate New York, using braces and crutches. In her memoir, she writes about the physical expansiveness of her childhood, about medical attempts to "fix" her body, about family violence, job discrimination, and a life rich with political activism, writing, and motherhood.
She also writes an autobiography of the disease, describing how it came to widespread public attention during a 1916 epidemic in New York in which immigrants, especially Italian immigrants, were scapegoated as being the vectors of the disease. She relates the key roles that Franklin Roosevelt played in constructing polio as a disease that could be overcome with hard work, as well as his ties to the nascent March of Dimes, the prototype of the modern charity. Along the way, we meet the formidable Sister Kenny, the Australian nurse who claimed to have found a revolutionary treatment for polio and who was one of the most admired women in America at mid-century; a group of polio survivors who formed the League of the Physically Handicapped to agitate for an end to disability discrimination in Depression-era relief projects; and the founders of the early disability-rights movement, many of them polio survivors who, having been raised to overcome obstacles and triumph over their disabilities, confronted a world filled with barriers and impediments that no amount of hard work could overcome.
Anne Finger writes with the candor and the skill of a novelist, and shows not only how polio shaped her life, but how it shaped American cultural experience as well.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Medical, History, Biography Memoir

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Sandra Rahimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the mix of the personal and the political, the historic and the social.

[Nancy Brady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anne Finger writes a memoir of her life with polio. She contracted polio when she was about three, and it has affected her life from then on. From her childhood to young adulthood to today, she has been fighting for justice for herself and others. And living a full life, despite post-polio syndrome.

Interspersed with her life story is the history of polio as well as some treatments used upon victims of the disease. Lots of information contained about the disease, but the most interesting part is her story, which includes the changing culture of the sixties and beyond.

Ever since I saw the movie, Five Little Pennies (I believe that was the title) starring Danny Kaye, in my youth, as well as reading about infantile paralysis in my cousin's encyclopedia, I have been fascinated with the disease and its aftermath. Having another cousin who had contracted polio as a child was another reason for learning more about the disease. Our cousin, whom we are called Uncle Don as he was my Dad's first cousin, lived a full, vital life, but was increasingly crippled up as he aged due to his bout with the virus. Like Anne Finger, he didn't let polio define him, yet it affected him his whole life long.

Thanks, Barb, for letting me borrow your book.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the most part, I enjoyed this book, it wasn’t quite what I was looking for but managed to meet my interests and give me some new information. This book gives some historical and medical background about Polio, as well as a personal account of a post-polio journey. I would have liked more information about patients during their fight against polio, but the author was quite young when she was diagnosed, so I understand why that was left out. I did not find the last few chapters as interesting, they mainly focused on the authors late teens and early adulthood life, and while I’m very glad she shared her negative experiences with job discrimination, I didn’t feel the emotions she struggled with or the day to day challenges, but rather a quick summary of the important moments she wanted to share. I think this book meets lots of interests, for example, disability rights, cultural phenomena surrounding disease, historical information, memoir and personal narrative etc, but does not go above and beyond in any of these categories. It was a good book, but seemed to be missing something for me as a reader.

[M. Leona Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, because I want more “personal & cultural” histories of disability. But the book, while well-written and engaging, was, as others have said, disjointed, and I feel like Finger’s editor was sleeping. There were questions on almost every page that made the whole endeavor feel like a draft rather than a final version. That said, the project is important, and I hope there will be more attempts to enlarge the ubiquitous memoir of disability.

[Sope Kahn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book is really interesting because it collaborates a personal and cultural history in relation to polio (as it explains in the title). The complex history informs the personal narrative, and vice versa. It's really well written and executed!

[Francine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this from the point of view of a polio survivor, and I am also writing a memoir about my similar experiences.
I felt that there were portions of illuminated, beautiful writing, and that much of the book was disjointed. Many parts were history - very interesting, appreciated hearing a little of that which I had not read elsewhere - punctuated by personal stories. Some of the personal stories were irrelevant, I felt, and some very poignant and illustrative of the handicapped experience.
I have read several stories of polio survivors who had abusive parents (my mother was as well) and also it seems to be common that our parents wanted us to be normal so badly that they pushed us far beyond what normie kids would have experienced. So from that perspective it was supportive to read that once again, Anne Finger had also been one of us polio survivors who were pushed too hard and made to feel we should try even harder.
So, I would have liked to give the book three stars but I thought some of the ramblings were distracting. She also has many, many segments where she says she just doesn't remember... and this is distracting and frustrating. I would have enjoyed a shorter book where she doesn't speculate and just tells us what she does remember.
I appreciate her contribution to the very small library of disability memoirs that exists out there.

[Gillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Appeal Points:
Insight into the lived experience of suffering from polio and its after-affects.
Interesting historical account of differences in perception, healthcare, and ways of living between today and the 1950's.

Genre: This book is non-fiction but written in a very lyrical and personal way. It is not dry or facts based.

Setting: Eastern United States in 1950's/ 1960's. West coast US and London, England 1960's/ 1970's.

Subject Headings: US History, Polio, Disability Rights.

Although this book provided an interesting perspective on polio and history as a lived experience, I felt at times that it strayed from a central focus and it felt as though the writer was elaborating too much.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir did a great job of going over the way in which polio as an epidemic was a huge part of social and political actions in the past. Anne Finger writes about her life and society's pressure to try and "overcome" polio and disability. It discusses the way in which disability is seen as something to overcome when really there are so many social barriers that cause disability to become problematic that it is not the disease or disability that needs to be overcome but instead the restrictions of the society that it resides within.

[Kari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though specifically about Polio, this book completely revolutionized the way I conceive of illnesses and their relationships to society. Changed my life and my work--I completely recommend this.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read like collected essays, but very compelling, particularly her play with gender and disability. Wove familial abuse in w/o overwhelming the narrative...modulated pain.

[Chante]

I read excerpts of this manuscript when I interned for Anne. I'm curious to see what it became.