Comments on: Jim Furlong: That Other Epidemic

By: Wilson Green

Wilson Green — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 08:02:13 +0000

I also had Polio and spent a year in the hospital in St. John’s. In 1992 while in Corner Brook I met another Wilson Green who had spent his life in a wheelchair due to Polio.

By: Gordon Pollett

Gordon Pollett — Sat, 11 Jun 2022 16:42:21 +0000

I am from New Harbour and I got polio in in 1959, I was about 3-3.5 months old. I was left with many issues.

By: Brian Thomas

Brian Thomas — Sun, 06 Jun 2021 00:39:55 +0000

My sister Patricia ( b: 1952 ) Grand Falls was as I’m told by my parents, the first case of polio in Newfoundland. I was born 14 months later ( 1953 ) at Grand Falls. She was flown out of Rushy Pond to St. John’s and stayed at ” The Sunshine Camp ” ***In the 1950s the Sunshine Camp for Crippled Children, the site of the present day Rotary Park, was founded to treat children with physical disabilities resulting from the Polio Epidemics of the ’50s.***
In 1954, we moved to Lethbridge near Clarenville so that we could be closer to her during treatment. In 1964 we moved back to Grand Falls. My sister became a teacher but passed away with cancer in 1985 at the age of 33.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 05 Jun 2021 23:25:41 +0000

In reply to Rosemary Morgan.

The photo in the article was taken in Edmonton. It’s on the Canadian Public Health’s website – if you google Polio in Canada in it should be the 1st link.

By: Rosemary Morgan

Rosemary Morgan — Wed, 12 May 2021 12:39:53 +0000

Jim Furlong where would I see the original photo above and the year it was taken.

By: Genny

Genny — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 15:06:19 +0000

Read your article – I am from Newfoundland and I seem to recall that polio had been in my area of the province in the earlier part i.e. up to 1954 – Bonavista Bay area – am I correct in assuming that you are referring to a specific outbreak and not a general outbreak throughout the province – noted the date 1959 in particular as I had left our beautiful province in 1953 – am I in error on thsi?
Good to read about the past when it comes to pandemics and how we just accepted the information and regulations applied to us – today, too much info on everything – too many experts.

Thanks.

By: Donald Hodder, MD

Donald Hodder, MD — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 20:18:31 +0000

There is an official epidemiological article on this epidemic in the Canadian Medical Association Journal for September 22, 1962, available online. I was teaching in Dildo 1958 – 1960. The first case was in July 1959 in Blaketown, a few miles from my boarding house. The next cases were in New Harbour and Whitbourne. It eventually spread around the province. It mostly affected young children with two-thirds of cases in the four years old and below group. There were 139 cases of paralytic poliomyelitis and 36 cases of aseptic meningiitis/ There were 12 deaths with a mortality rate of 8.6 %.