The Moth in the Iron Lung: A Biography of Polio by Forrest Maready

Author:Forrest Maready [Maready, Forrest]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-04T07:00:00+00:00

The work has spelled opportunity for Rochester’s children. Every child, no matter what the circumstances of its parents, had been given an opportunity to have its teeth properly cared for, to have its tonsils and adenoids removed and so to defend the chief portals of entry, the mouth and nose, against disease.61

Many years earlier, George Eastman, a Rochester resident who spent much of his time caring for his widowed mother and polio-stricken sister, had perfected the technique of preparing dry emulsion film. He would would turn his business—Eastman Kodak—into the largest photography company in the world. Like many wealthy tycoons of the era, he had given large sums of money to improve the health and welfare of the less fortunate. Eastman’s focus began with dentistry—a godsend for poor children throughout Rochester—and eventually expanded its reach into medicine’s emerging fascination with tonsil and adenoid removal.

Since the turn of the century, tonsils had become a constant concern to physicians. They were thought to be the seat of inflammation for many different diseases a child might experience. Others assumed that inflamed tonsils were the actual source of infection for sickness. Nearly everyone agreed that diseased tonsils caused mouth-breathing, something they considered a clear sign of mental handicap.

In an attempt to understand this phenomenon, extensive studies were conducted at different schools. Teachers would sort their students into groups of Bright, Normal, Dull, and Dullest children. After examination by visiting physicians or nurses, the Dull and Dullest groups were noted to have had the highest number of tonsil and adenoid conditions. Although the perceived association was strong, it was not a new revelation.

Inflamed tonsils and adenoids—and the mouth breathing that went along with it—were long suspected to be the cause of nearly any mental handicap. Even 2,000 years ago, Hippocrates wrote, “Open-mouthed youths are sluggards.” While this association may seem implausible, recent scientific evidence may actually support it. It is now known that a particular injected metal—aluminum hydroxide—tends to gather in the lymph nodes and what are called lymphoid tissues. Among other problems, the ensuing inflammation causes swelling and tenderness. In an age of frequently administered metallic medicines or pesticides, it would not be unreasonable to anticipate both swollen tonsils and “dull” children.

Regardless of the cause, doctors told mothers that the removal of the tonsils of their “backward child” would make them bright. Medical journals reported on the incredible intellectual improvement shown by children who had tonsillectomies. Classmates ceased making fun of them, and teachers remarked at how their test scores skyrocketed. Even perceived physical shortcomings could be cured by the magic procedure, as reports would mention children growing several inches in the months following their operations. For nearly anything that ailed a developing child, physicians had a new solution—a surgery, no less, which they could charge handsomely for.

With improvements to anesthesia and medical instruments such as the tonsil guillotine, physicians and health officials flooded into schools all over the country, looking for signs of diseased or inflamed tonsils. Children who were judged to have

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