Rutty C J
Health Heritage Research Services, Ontario.
Can Bull Med Hist. 1996;13(2):277-314. doi: 10.3138/cbmh.13.2.277.
During the pre-Salk era, paralytic poliomyelitis was one of the most feared diseases of twentieth-century North America. This perception, held most strongly by the middle class-- polio's principal target--shaped a unique Canadian response to it based on comprehensive, standardized, and unconditional programs of "state medicine" at the provincial level. Of Canada's four major waves of provincial polio epidemics, the second struck Ontario to an unprecedented degree in 1937, generating a similarly unprecedented response from the Ontario government in its control, treatment, hospitalization, and aftercare measures. As this article discusses, the severity of this epidemic led the provincial, and other Canadian public health authorities, to face a central question: How far should governments be compelled to go to ensure the advantages of modern treatment for their people? This article helps place the social impact of, and political and scientific response to, epidemic polio within the context of Canada's evolving public health and state medicine infrastructure at the time.
在索尔克疫苗问世之前的时代，麻痹性脊髓灰质炎是20世纪北美最令人恐惧的疾病之一。这种观念在中产阶级中最为强烈，而中产阶级是脊髓灰质炎的主要目标群体，它塑造了加拿大对脊髓灰质炎的独特应对方式，这种应对基于省级层面全面、标准化且无条件的“国家医疗”计划。在加拿大省级脊髓灰质炎流行的四次主要浪潮中，第二次于1937年以前所未有的程度袭击了安大略省，这也促使安大略省政府在控制、治疗、住院及后续护理措施方面做出了同样前所未有的回应。正如本文所讨论的，此次疫情的严重程度促使省级及其他加拿大公共卫生当局面临一个核心问题：政府应在多大程度上被迫采取行动，以确保民众能够受益于现代治疗方法？本文有助于将脊髓灰质炎疫情的社会影响以及当时加拿大在公共卫生和国家医疗基础设施不断发展的背景下对其做出的政治和科学回应置于相应情境中进行考量。
