IDS 402: 3-1 Discussion Wellness in History
Hello everyone.
To me, looking through the lens of history regarding wellness provides insight into how each generation promoted wellness during their time. Using the lens of history allows people to use experiences from an earlier and similar situation to give us an understanding within the new situation (American Historical Association, 2021). Wellness has meant different things to different cultures in different eras. Wellness in ancient times was more focused on mental, spiritual, and physical wellness. Fast forward to today, many people will equate wellness to how physically fit he or she is. It is critical to consider how our forefathers' wellness journeys impacted them, and to learn from their mistakes so that we don't repeat them. Wellness is a life long journey with ups and downs, what matters is that we keep moving forward.
A current news event and its historical counterpart I researched are the COVID vaccine and pandemic compared to the polio vaccine and pandemic at the end of the 19th and first part of the 20th century. In 1916, polio was first brought to the attention of the public, with 27,000 cases and more than 6,000 deaths in the United States alone (Tucker, 2020). Polio was crippling tens of thousands of Americans each year before a vaccine was developed and put into use. There is no cure to polio, and many people feared the disease because it could kill adults and cause paralysis in children. Polio was most prevalent in the summer months. Since there were no cure and people feared the disease, the public at large avoided areas where there were public gatherings, theatres, public pools, group meetings and vacationing at resorts. People chose to change their behaviors to minimize the risk of contracting polio. By 1952, there were 57,628 reported polio cases in the U.S., 3,145 died, and 21,269 experienced paralysis (Tucker, 2020). My grandmother contracted polio during this time as a young mother of three. Her doctors told her she would never walk again and that if she did, she would walk with a limp or have a deformity in her legs and feet.
In the mid to late 1950's, Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was approved for use (Abrams & Smith, 2021). People lined up for the vaccine because of the cruelty of the disease. The vaccine did have its issues though. There was a tragic occurrence in which Cutter Lab's, who made the vaccine, immunizations caused thousands of individuals to develop polio, 200 of whom were disabled, and ten others who died (Abrams & Smith, 2021). Yet people were still willing to get the vaccine to try to stop the disease from affecting their children. The idea of their child becoming crippled or being placed in an iron lung was something they desperately wanted to avoid. The polio vaccine is still used today and is one of the childhood vaccines required to enter school.
Compared to polio, the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine has had some