At SickKids, doctors performed a lumbar puncture — a painful spinal fluid extraction, the only sure test for the polio virus. Sick Kids hospital built its own iron lungs in response to the 1937 polio outbreak. ( HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN ARCHIVES )The Youngs had chosen to go to Toronto, rather than the closer Peterborough hospital, because there were more “iron lungs” in the bigger city. In one to two per cent of cases, polio, which affects the nerves, resulted in paralysis of the arms, legs or the diaphragm. (We now know that the polio virus enters the body through the mouth, usually from hands contaminated with the stool of an infected person.

Source: thestar July 06, 2017 03:56 UTC