How / where did FDR get poilio???

Question

where do historians think he got the illness

Answer 1

In August 1921, while the Roosevelts were vacationing at Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Roosevelt contracted an illness, at the time believed to be polio, which resulted in Roosevelt's total and permanent paralysis from the waist down. For the rest of his life, Roosevelt refused to accept that he was permanently paralyzed. He tried a wide range of therapies, including hydrotherapy, and, in 1926, he purchased a resort at Warm Springs, Georgia, where he founded a hydrotherapy center for the treatment of polio patients which still operates as the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation.

In 2003, a peer-reviewed study found that it was more likely that Roosevelt's paralytic illness was actually Guillain-Barré syndrome, not poliomyelitis.

Answer 2

In the HBO documentary "Warm Springs," FDR was pictured visiting a Boy Scout camp for a photo op, and drinking water from a wooden trough with his hands next to a boy. At the end of the movie the credits took note that some experts believed polio was transmitted through poor water supplies. (It's a good movie.)

From Wikipedia:
Pathogenesis
Humans are the only natural host of poliovirus. Polio spreads through human-to-human contact, usually entering the body through the mouth due to fecally contaminated water or food (fecal-oral transmission).

Answer 3

In addition to CLICK's answer, also see the movie "Sunrise at Campobello" It was an older movie starring Ralph Bellamy as FDR. While somewhat fanciful (as most movies from that era were), there is still enough info there to help. There was also a movie starring Edward Herrman whose title I can't recall that dealt with the same issue, though dealt more with FDR's infidelities.

Answer 4

At the time he was living polio was a much more common disease in society and they had not developed the vaccine for kids. He contracted it, like many other people of various age groups at that time.

Answer 5

It was in the air. He was old for getting it, but lots of people got polio in the spring and summer before the vaccines were created.

Answer 6

From a toilet seat.

Answer 7

i don't know.