Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine trials began / Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush began - Feb. 23
February 23, 2021 • 12 mins
On this day in 1954, polio vaccine trials began. / On this day in 1944, the Stalinist regime began deporting the Chechens and Ingush into remote areas of the Soviet Union.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, everyone, it's Eves checking in here to let you
know that you're going to be hearing two different events
in history in this episode. They're both good, if I
do say so myself. On with the show. Welcome to
this day and History Class where history waits for no One.
(00:23):
The day was February nineteen fifty four. A group of
children from Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, received the
first vaccines for polio, a disabling and potentially deadly infectious
disease that can cause meningitis and paralysis, among other symptoms.
(00:44):
The new vaccine have been developed by Dr Jonas Salk,
an American physician and medical researcher. Salk's vaccine was a
continuation of the work many other researchers had done before him,
and it wouldn't serve as be all in all solution
to polio transmission. What the vaccine did do, though, was
(01:07):
reduced the rate at which polio was occurring among middle
class Americans. Polio, the shortened name for polio myelitis, is
caused by the poliovirus. As the contagious virus spreads from
person to person, it can wreak havoc on the nervous
system of the affected, causing muscle deterioration and even death
(01:29):
if it disrupts the processes of breathing or swallowing. There
were only twenty two reported cases of polio worldwide in TV,
but back in the early nineteen fifties, the number of
known polio cases in the world was in the hundreds
of thousands, and the United States was facing an epidemic.
(01:51):
The rate of paralysis and death from polio was on
the rise, and the public was rightfully scared. People were
in se seingly aware of the need for a polio
vaccine by this time. Teams have been working to find
an effective and safe vaccine for polio for decades, and
(02:12):
people were racing to find ways to help prevent incidences
of polio. In nineteen thirty five, both Maurice Brody and
John Colemer developed polio vaccines and tested them on monkeys
then children, but people were paralyzed and died in both experiments,
even though Brody's results were promising and other researchers reactions
(02:35):
to the tests were overwhelmingly negative. In nineteen thirty eight,
the March of Dimes was established when people sent dimes
to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who have been diagnosed with polio,
to help raise funds to fight the disease. In nineteen
forty nine, researchers at the Polio Myelitis Laboratory at Johns
(02:58):
Hopkins University as established that there were three immunologically different
varieties of polio and too much well deserved ethical concern.
Researcher Hilary Kaprowski tested a live attenuated vaccine on children
and an institution for mentally and physically disabled people. The
(03:19):
point is by nineteen and fifty two, many breakthroughs related
to polio vaccination had been made, and medicine was well
on its way to figuring out how to prevent polio.
Dr Jonas Salk was head of the virus Research Lab
at the University of Pittsburgh. In nineteen forty eight, he
(03:40):
was given a grant to study polio and potentially develop
a vaccine for it, and he did just that using
a procedure the aforementioned Maurice Brodie had tried years earlier.
Salk would grow samples of the polio virus and then
deactivate them using a solution called formulin. Then he would
(04:01):
inject the dead virus into a patient's bloodstream, and that
person's immune system would create antibodies that prevented future exposure
to polio. The vaccine required three injections and a booster.
Salk and his team began early test of the vaccine
on physically and mentally disabled children in nineteen fifty two
(04:24):
using funds from the March of Dimes, which was then
called the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, and in nineteen
fifty three, Salk injected himself, his wife, and his sons
with the polio vaccine. Children were given the first injections
of the new vaccine at Arsenal Elementary School on February
(04:46):
nineteen fifty four, and a couple of months later, a
large scale trial of the polio vaccine began. Nearly two
million children ended up participating in the trial. The next year,
when results of the trial were announced, they showed that
the vaccines had largely been effective. Salt had become a
(05:07):
sort of celebrity or household name, but his success did
not come without controversy. Formulin wasn't always successful at deactivating
the live virus, so the live virus could remain in
some vaccines. Because of this, a bad batch of polio
vaccines made by Cutter Laboratories caused forty thousand cases of
(05:32):
polio myelitis, dozens of cases of paralytic polio, several deaths,
and an epidemic within affected communities, and Cutter's vaccine was
taken off the market. Some immunologists and epidemiologists were concerned
that SALKS vaccine wasn't as safe and practical as it
(05:53):
needed to be to effectively produce lifelong immunity in millions
of people. They argued that an oral attenuated live virus
vaccine was a better option, But by nineteen fifty six,
the number of polio cases in the US had dropped
for more than fourteen thousand and nineteen fifty five to
(06:15):
less than six thousand, and nearly a hundred other countries
were using sALS vaccine by nineteen fifty nine. Albert Saban
did develop an oral attenuated live virus vaccine that was
licensed in nineteen sixty two. It was cheaper and easier
to take than sALS vaccine and thus became more popular. Today,
(06:40):
sALS vaccine is once again the favorite method of polio immunization,
but elsewhere in the world where polio occurs at a
higher rate, Saban's vaccine is preferred. I'm each Jeff Coote
and hopefully you know a little more about history today
than you did yesterday. And if you like to follow
(07:00):
us on social media, you can find us at T
D I h C Podcast on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Thanks for joining me on this trip through history. See
you here, same place tomorrow. Hi again, everyone, it's Eves
(07:32):
and welcome to this Day in History class, a show
where history waits for no one. The day was February.
The Stalinist regime ordered the Chechens in the English to
(07:52):
be deported to Central Asia and Siberia, accusing them of
collaboration with the invading Nazis. The Chech in English are
Northeast Caucasian ethnic groups. Together, the groups are known as
the Wynock peoples. Hostilities and violence between the Chechens in
Russia date back centuries. In the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties,
(08:14):
after the Soviet Union was formed, the Chechens resisted Stalin's
collectivization and Sovietization policies, but in nineteen thirty four, the
Soviet government merged the Chechen and English Autonomous Oblast into
a single political administrative entity. That entity became the Chechen
English Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in nineteen thirty six. Encouraged
(08:39):
by Soviet defeats in the Winter War against Finland, in
late nineteen thirty and early nineteen forty, Chechen nationalist Kassan
Israel Law led a rebellion of Chechen and English people's
against the Soviets. The uprising gained momentum, and by the
time of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in
nineteen forty one, the movement had gained thousands of fighters
(09:00):
and sympathizers. In nineteen forty two, Maryribeck Schripav, another leader
in the Chechen insurgency, joined forces with israel Law. It
was rumored that the Germans assisted the Chechens in their rebellion,
but many historians deny that this claim is true. The
rebellion lasted until nineteen forty four. In February of that year,
(09:21):
Labyrncy Barrier, the head of the nk v D, ordered
that the Chechens in English be deported to remote areas
in the Soviet Union. N k v D stands for
the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. The n k v
D was a government organ of the state and secret police.
During the Second World War, Stalin implemented many systems of
(09:43):
deportation and forced transfers. There were the Gulag forced labor camps,
and there were massive deportations of ethnic minorities. Part of
the n k v d's responsibilities were to imprison and
deport political and ethnic enemies of the Viet Union. The
deportation of the Chechens in English was known as Operation
(10:05):
Checha visa for Operation Lintel. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin accused
the groups of collaborating with the Nazis, even though no
substantial evidence to support this claim has ever been discovered.
The deportations began on February twenty third, ninety four, when
the deportees were given basically no time to gather their belongings.
(10:27):
The number of people deported varies by source, but it's
usually estimated at anywhere between four hundred thousand and six
hundred thousand people. Through the rest of February and into March,
families were loaded onto trains and forcibly transferred to places
like Kazakhstan. In Siberia, the terrain and Chechen resistance in
(10:48):
the mountains slowed. The deportation and the conditions and the
cattle trains and freight cars were terrible. There was no
running water or heat, and people were hungry and subject
to infection. The deportees were put into so called special settlements.
Over the next thirteen years, they were overseen by the
n k v D and we're not able to leave
(11:10):
their villages past a short distance. They had to perform
hard physical labor. Estimates put the number of Chechen and
English deaths from the deportation and exile at up to
two hundred thousand. The Chech in English a s s
R was dissolved in nineteen forty four, but it was
restored in nineteen fifty seven after Nikita Khrushchev came to power.
(11:34):
The Chechens in English began returning to their homelands by
the thousands. There they found their land and homes occupied
or deteriorated, and they continued to face ethnic conflicts. I'm
Eves Jeff Coote, and hopefully you know a little more
about history of today than you did yesterday. If you
know you already spend too much time on social media,
(11:55):
spend some of that time with us at t D
I H. C Pie Podcast on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
You can also shoot us an email at this day
at i heart media dot com. Thank you again for
listening and we'll see you tomorrow. For more podcasts from
(12:23):
I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hello, everyone, it's Eves checking in here to let you
know that you're going to be hearing two different events
in history in this episode. They're both good, if I
do say so myself. On with the show. Welcome to
this day and History Class where history waits for no One.
(00:23):
The day was February nineteen fifty four. A group of
children from Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, received the
first vaccines for polio, a disabling and potentially deadly infectious
disease that can cause meningitis and paralysis, among other symptoms.
(00:44):
The new vaccine have been developed by Dr Jonas Salk,
an American physician and medical researcher. Salk's vaccine was a
continuation of the work many other researchers had done before him,
and it wouldn't serve as be all in all solution
to polio transmission. What the vaccine did do, though, was
(01:07):
reduced the rate at which polio was occurring among middle
class Americans. Polio, the shortened name for polio myelitis, is
caused by the poliovirus. As the contagious virus spreads from
person to person, it can wreak havoc on the nervous
system of the affected, causing muscle deterioration and even death
(01:29):
if it disrupts the processes of breathing or swallowing. There
were only twenty two reported cases of polio worldwide in TV,
but back in the early nineteen fifties, the number of
known polio cases in the world was in the hundreds
of thousands, and the United States was facing an epidemic.
(01:51):
The rate of paralysis and death from polio was on
the rise, and the public was rightfully scared. People were
in se seingly aware of the need for a polio
vaccine by this time. Teams have been working to find
an effective and safe vaccine for polio for decades, and
(02:12):
people were racing to find ways to help prevent incidences
of polio. In nineteen thirty five, both Maurice Brody and
John Colemer developed polio vaccines and tested them on monkeys
then children, but people were paralyzed and died in both experiments,
even though Brody's results were promising and other researchers reactions
(02:35):
to the tests were overwhelmingly negative. In nineteen thirty eight,
the March of Dimes was established when people sent dimes
to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who have been diagnosed with polio,
to help raise funds to fight the disease. In nineteen
forty nine, researchers at the Polio Myelitis Laboratory at Johns
(02:58):
Hopkins University as established that there were three immunologically different
varieties of polio and too much well deserved ethical concern.
Researcher Hilary Kaprowski tested a live attenuated vaccine on children
and an institution for mentally and physically disabled people. The
(03:19):
point is by nineteen and fifty two, many breakthroughs related
to polio vaccination had been made, and medicine was well
on its way to figuring out how to prevent polio.
Dr Jonas Salk was head of the virus Research Lab
at the University of Pittsburgh. In nineteen forty eight, he
(03:40):
was given a grant to study polio and potentially develop
a vaccine for it, and he did just that using
a procedure the aforementioned Maurice Brodie had tried years earlier.
Salk would grow samples of the polio virus and then
deactivate them using a solution called formulin. Then he would
(04:01):
inject the dead virus into a patient's bloodstream, and that
person's immune system would create antibodies that prevented future exposure
to polio. The vaccine required three injections and a booster.
Salk and his team began early test of the vaccine
on physically and mentally disabled children in nineteen fifty two
(04:24):
using funds from the March of Dimes, which was then
called the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, and in nineteen
fifty three, Salk injected himself, his wife, and his sons
with the polio vaccine. Children were given the first injections
of the new vaccine at Arsenal Elementary School on February
(04:46):
nineteen fifty four, and a couple of months later, a
large scale trial of the polio vaccine began. Nearly two
million children ended up participating in the trial. The next year,
when results of the trial were announced, they showed that
the vaccines had largely been effective. Salt had become a
(05:07):
sort of celebrity or household name, but his success did
not come without controversy. Formulin wasn't always successful at deactivating
the live virus, so the live virus could remain in
some vaccines. Because of this, a bad batch of polio
vaccines made by Cutter Laboratories caused forty thousand cases of
(05:32):
polio myelitis, dozens of cases of paralytic polio, several deaths,
and an epidemic within affected communities, and Cutter's vaccine was
taken off the market. Some immunologists and epidemiologists were concerned
that SALKS vaccine wasn't as safe and practical as it
(05:53):
needed to be to effectively produce lifelong immunity in millions
of people. They argued that an oral attenuated live virus
vaccine was a better option, But by nineteen fifty six,
the number of polio cases in the US had dropped
for more than fourteen thousand and nineteen fifty five to
(06:15):
less than six thousand, and nearly a hundred other countries
were using sALS vaccine by nineteen fifty nine. Albert Saban
did develop an oral attenuated live virus vaccine that was
licensed in nineteen sixty two. It was cheaper and easier
to take than sALS vaccine and thus became more popular. Today,
(06:40):
sALS vaccine is once again the favorite method of polio immunization,
but elsewhere in the world where polio occurs at a
higher rate, Saban's vaccine is preferred. I'm each Jeff Coote
and hopefully you know a little more about history today
than you did yesterday. And if you like to follow
(07:00):
us on social media, you can find us at T
D I h C Podcast on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Thanks for joining me on this trip through history. See
you here, same place tomorrow. Hi again, everyone, it's Eves
(07:32):
and welcome to this Day in History class, a show
where history waits for no one. The day was February.
The Stalinist regime ordered the Chechens in the English to
(07:52):
be deported to Central Asia and Siberia, accusing them of
collaboration with the invading Nazis. The Chech in English are
Northeast Caucasian ethnic groups. Together, the groups are known as
the Wynock peoples. Hostilities and violence between the Chechens in
Russia date back centuries. In the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties,
(08:14):
after the Soviet Union was formed, the Chechens resisted Stalin's
collectivization and Sovietization policies, but in nineteen thirty four, the
Soviet government merged the Chechen and English Autonomous Oblast into
a single political administrative entity. That entity became the Chechen
English Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in nineteen thirty six. Encouraged
(08:39):
by Soviet defeats in the Winter War against Finland, in
late nineteen thirty and early nineteen forty, Chechen nationalist Kassan
Israel Law led a rebellion of Chechen and English people's
against the Soviets. The uprising gained momentum, and by the
time of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in
nineteen forty one, the movement had gained thousands of fighters
(09:00):
and sympathizers. In nineteen forty two, Maryribeck Schripav, another leader
in the Chechen insurgency, joined forces with israel Law. It
was rumored that the Germans assisted the Chechens in their rebellion,
but many historians deny that this claim is true. The
rebellion lasted until nineteen forty four. In February of that year,
(09:21):
Labyrncy Barrier, the head of the nk v D, ordered
that the Chechens in English be deported to remote areas
in the Soviet Union. N k v D stands for
the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. The n k v
D was a government organ of the state and secret police.
During the Second World War, Stalin implemented many systems of
(09:43):
deportation and forced transfers. There were the Gulag forced labor camps,
and there were massive deportations of ethnic minorities. Part of
the n k v d's responsibilities were to imprison and
deport political and ethnic enemies of the Viet Union. The
deportation of the Chechens in English was known as Operation
(10:05):
Checha visa for Operation Lintel. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin accused
the groups of collaborating with the Nazis, even though no
substantial evidence to support this claim has ever been discovered.
The deportations began on February twenty third, ninety four, when
the deportees were given basically no time to gather their belongings.
(10:27):
The number of people deported varies by source, but it's
usually estimated at anywhere between four hundred thousand and six
hundred thousand people. Through the rest of February and into March,
families were loaded onto trains and forcibly transferred to places
like Kazakhstan. In Siberia, the terrain and Chechen resistance in
(10:48):
the mountains slowed. The deportation and the conditions and the
cattle trains and freight cars were terrible. There was no
running water or heat, and people were hungry and subject
to infection. The deportees were put into so called special settlements.
Over the next thirteen years, they were overseen by the
n k v D and we're not able to leave
(11:10):
their villages past a short distance. They had to perform
hard physical labor. Estimates put the number of Chechen and
English deaths from the deportation and exile at up to
two hundred thousand. The Chech in English a s s
R was dissolved in nineteen forty four, but it was
restored in nineteen fifty seven after Nikita Khrushchev came to power.
(11:34):
The Chechens in English began returning to their homelands by
the thousands. There they found their land and homes occupied
or deteriorated, and they continued to face ethnic conflicts. I'm
Eves Jeff Coote, and hopefully you know a little more
about history of today than you did yesterday. If you
know you already spend too much time on social media,
(11:55):
spend some of that time with us at t D
I H. C Pie Podcast on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
You can also shoot us an email at this day
at i heart media dot com. Thank you again for
listening and we'll see you tomorrow. For more podcasts from
(12:23):
I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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