Vaccination, October 1962
With vaccination on everybody's minds so much lately, I was fascinated to find a group of photos from 1962 (in Ventura County, CA) where the Sabin polio vaccine was being administered to residents.
The Sabin oral polio vaccine became commercially available in 1961; it eliminated the need for sterile syringes (necessary for the Salk vaccine), and was more suitable for mass vaccinations. Hey look! A Shriner, in the wild!
Unloading boxes of vaccine, presumably.
A doctor, nurses, and volunteers are ready to help you!
And here come the locals. There seem to be quite a few babies in these photos, maybe they were just more photogenic. Some 10 million cases of infantile paralysis have been prevented by vaccines (I remember grim photos of children in iron lungs), as well as over 500,000 deaths.
I remember getting the polio vaccine when I was a child - in our case it wasn't a drink, but a sugar cube. My memory might be faulty, but I thought that the cube of sugar had a pink spot on it, presumably where the vaccine had been added.
Babies got an eye dropper full of the medicine.
And one last photo - more babies! What a relief it would be for a parent to know that their child would likely be immune to that terrible disease.
I hope you found today's photos to be interesting!
I'm still out of town, hope you are all having a great weekend.
24 comments:
Major-
So, is the fez a relative of the babushka-? Melissa - please-!
In the 3rd image, the lady in the blue dress probably shouldn't be posing with her arms crossed, but she definitely knows the proper way to stand, with her shoes pointed at the correct angles.
Gotta love those "Saturn" 'chandelier' light fixtures. Those fixtures took 300 - or some possibly 500-watt - silver bowl, mogul based lamps. No nasty direct light pointing down, no sir, just tons of [horribly-inefficient] up-lighting, bouncing-off the ceiling. And those folding chairs: This "design" was completely-lacking in any sort of ergonomic features. These were definitely 'ass killers'-! Oh, the "good old days".
I'm surprised the gentleman in the 5th image guzzling-down his red-colored sugar cube (I believe you are correct, Major) was able to take time out from smoking-! I bet the moment he puts the cup down, that cigarette will be stuck between his lips.
Major - thanks for this fun look back.
I say the fez and the babushka should be friends, just like the farmer and the cowman. I made myself a shorter version of a fez once for a Halloween costume, out of a maroon chair cover than matched my smoking jacket. It got re-covered and used in a few different plays. It was nowhere near as nice as the ones in these pictures, but these are probably fancy schmancy store-bought.
Everybody looks understandably very happy. Those babies are probably grandparents now!
I’m always so jealous of the kids who got the oral polio vaccine on a sugar cube (like Bob Sherman’s son, whose experience inspired the Mary Poppins song).They just dropped it straight onto our tongues, and I remember it not tasting particularly good! My sister, and most of the U.S. kids my age I’ve talked to about it, got the injection instead of the oral vaccine. I assume it’s because the primary school I was attending at the time was run by Baptist missionaries, and they were probably using up whatever supplies they used in their overseas missions.
I completely understand and agree with the reasons why nurses stopped wearing caps. However, seeing them on the nurses in these pictures gives me that little extra sense of comfort seeing a capped nurse used to bring when I was little. And they remind me of the Cherry Ames books I used to read as a girl. (Cherry was kind of like Nancy Drew, but she was also a nurse who fought Nazis.)
Wow, what a unique posting Major, bravo. It brings back some memories for sure. Fez and nurses caps, fedoras and pill boxes, we seem to have lost the desire for head coverings. Melissa, Cherry and Nancy Drew reminded me of the Hardy Boys and the Happy Hollisters I read as a kid. I hope Major and everyone has a great weekend.
Nanook, I bet that guy was wishing they had come up with a way to put the vaccine INSIDE his cigarette!
These are fascinating photos, Major. I suppose in another 50 years, someone might be looking back with equal fascination, at photos of us getting our COVID vaccinations.
I have a vague memory of getting some sort of medicine from an eyedropper when I was very small, but I have no idea if it was the polio vaccine or not. It may have just been the standard microchip they give all children. This is why I wear my hats with the shiny side of the foil facing outwards - it reflects the tachyon rays from the Illuminati mind-control satellites much better.
Note the uniformed Red Cross volunteers in the fourth and sixth pictures. One has a patch on her left sleeve and the other has pins on her collars. I remember my mother making cookies for the Red Cross in the early '70s that were then distributed to patients at the base hospital at Travis AFB. My little sister, who was probably 2 or 3, ended up being featured in a photo in the base paper as "the littlest volunteer." They also identified her as the daughter of Captain Herman Hanger, which probably surprised our dad a little bit since that isn't his first or his last name.
I do remember standing in line in school, as a little kid, to get a shot—but don’t recall the sugar cube. I always dreaded those needles—going to the doctor for those school physicals and vaccinations.
Does anyone know what vaccination we were given that gave “us” that small, faint, circle scar near the top of our arm? Just wondering...
Very interesting pictures, today, Major—thank you!
Sue, the round faint scar on some people's arms is from the small pox vaccine.
I also remember standing in line at school for a vaccine, at least once, and I believe that was for the small pox vaccine. I remember the doctor (?) who was administering it, holding the vaccine "gun" with the bottle of fluid attached. I also remember him pointing to the bottle and telling me that it contained a special "Kool-Aid." Weird. I bet he didn't tell kids that after the Jonestown Massacre.
I was a sugar cube kid. I would have preferred my covid in a cube, too. We had a kid in our class in grammar school, Al, who survived polio but had braces on his legs. He could do handstands and still played kick ball with us. He could really move on those crutches.
Nanook, we had those lights in my grammar school! The better to see you with!
Thanks Major
Zach
It looks like the Firestone in the background of that first photo is still there in Ventura almost sixty years later! It would appear the photo was taken from about midway up the western side of the block on South California Street between East Thompson Boulevard and East Santa Clara Street (annoyingly, Blogger Comments isn't let me post the hyperlink for some reason). There's a civic building at that next corner – now (and then?) a Masonic Lodge with a tourist info office on the ground floor. Could this be the building where those vaccines are being administered?
I'm pretty sure we were given the sugar cube in the early 1970s, but then again that could just be an invented memory.
I received a fez at a wedding in Jordan several years back long. Alas it's been at the back of the closet since then, but that shriner in the first pic has inspired me to go dig it out and spend the rest of the weekend wearing it – Thanks, Major!
*That should have read 'eastern' side of South California Street.
Sugar cube kid here too. I must say, all those people in these photos look just like they're supposed to look. Very 1962. We did a trip to the D-land, Knott's, Marineland and the San Diego Zoo that year in July. It was a good year to be 12.
Great weekend to all
Thanks Major Pepperidge, wherever you are.
Sugar cube here too! I clearly remember my mom, brother and I standing in line at the school gym. Guess dad was at work. I can't remember exactly the date but my mom kept all my vaccine records (!) and I still have them (somewhere).
Major and all,
I remember getting the shot also. My brother and I were attending Whittier Elementary in Seattle, and everyone lined up to head to the nurse's office. And yes, she had the little white cap too. And for some reason it seems that the shot was a 2 shot regimen, but I don't recall for sure. Mom and dad were greatly relieved that the vaccine was made available.
Interesting that you should post these today, Major. Just 2 weeks or so back the Smithsonian Channel had a program on about this very subject. It was a 'this day in history' show, and highlighted the history of polio vaccines and the competition/rivalry between Salk and Sabin. If it can be found online somewhere, it is worth watching.
W
Cool photos. I love slice-of-life pics from different eras.
Those mid-century Saturn lights were in the classrooms at Walt Disney School.
I was a polio shot vax kid too. I always hated needles (even to this day!). I remember the smallpox vaccination REALLY hurting.
I remember something about sugar cubes in the late 60s... but that's another story ;)
If anyone’s interested, I found a picture of my homemade fez:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Dgav4XFNcbo849zJranHqm6PEbAz4kaL/view?usp=drivesdk
Nice looking Fez Melissa. Like the color. My sister and her partner took a trip to Istanbul a few years ago and I requested one. She brought home a red one that was 3 sizes too big. It looks very good next to the Deerstalker my Mom got me on a trip to London. It fits.
@ zach and Grant-
Many grammar school classrooms had those 'Saturn' lights. Looking at today's image, it appears the ceiling height is hovering-around 13-15 feet AFF. If those fixtures were the only ones providing lighting in that space, it must have been awfully dreary in that room.
@ Pegleg Pete-
At first blush, I thought you had the correct ID. There's still a Chevron/Standard Oil gas station just this side of the Firestone Tire store. But... looking-around the current view, I just don't think so. There are some palm trees missing in the historical view, along with the two old-looking buildings presently there. The sign on the truck does say Ventura County, so I'm thinking it's another location in the county. But if not what you found - where-?
@ Melissa-
Very nice-! Kind of a cross between a fez, a pillbox hat and a smoking cap. (You need to patent it-!)
@ Pegleg Pete-
So, those palm trees seen in the current view (if there in the historical view - and let's assume they were) would be out of range of the shot. So that could reinforce your ID'd location. HERE'S a link to that view.
Nanook, I was at first doubtful, but then I saw the vent(?) on the roof directly above the Firestone logo. The garage doors seem to match as well. The clincher, however, was the askew facade of the side with the garage doors. Here's the view I was looking at:
www.google.co.uk/maps/@34.2789799,-119.293134,3a,15y,161.6h,89.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sJ5TSfFhZdmOHmuuLTZ6pWg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Sorry, for the full link – as I mentioned earlier, for some reason Blogger won’t allow me to post the hyperlink today.
@ Pegleg Pete-
It certainly seems like the same spot to me. But those two story buildings behind the truck (and would you believe a 1942-1947 Chevrolet Aero Sedan-?) are a bit elusive in the current image.
I love the depiction of the polio vaccine being administered at a high school in the late 50’s in the John Water’s musical film CRY BABY. It also has a sene of people going to there first “Theme Park”
I remember getting the sugar cube. I was a sniveling wimp when it came to needles for longer than I want to admit. Eventually I was sufficiently cool to donate ten gallons of blood (my own) to Red Cross.
Long after the polio vaccine got a book of Peanuts strips that included needle-shy Linus getting a shot for measles. As Lucy sits in the waiting room Linus is screaming from out of frame: "WHAT HAPPENED TO SUGAR CUBES?" I may have yelled something similar.
Dixie Canyon Elementary School in Sherman Oaks. Having been so afraid of shots what a wonderful surprise to know all I had to eat was a sugar cube. I was hooked that shots were a thing of the past. So few understand the true horror of illnesses that can be controlled or eliminated with vaccinations these days. KS
I remember the sugar cube, but there was a follow up shot with a needle, or maybe that was some other vax. Too long ago.
Interesting pictures, Major, very appropriate. I really remember rooms like these, folding chairs and tables, and those light fixtures (and variations thereof). Every school and every Scout meeting I ever attended. Even the wood-grained paper tub by the man chugging his dose.
I’m not big on needles even today. Always look the other way. I don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of, what normal person would enjoy being stabbed with a sharp object, even if it doesn’t hurt?
Dr. G, Melissa, we should all provide photos wearing our fezzes (fezi?)
JG
Post a Comment