This Won’t Hurt A Bit

“This won’t hurt a bit.” 

I’m sure those words of comfort were spoken as Nurse Landis, overseen by Dr. Stephen Lockey Jr., administered a polio vaccine shot to this youngster sometime around 1955. Dr. Lockey was a pioneer in the field of allergy and immunology who began his 51 year medical career as an intern at Lancaster General Hospital in 1932. A graduate of Franklin and Marshall College and Temple University, he also did post graduate studies at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. He was inspired to go into his chosen field after his brother suffered a fatal reaction to medication for diptheria. Dr. Lockey founded the Department of Allergy and the Department of Inhalation Therapy at Lancaster General Hospital. His three sons, James, Richard, and Stephen, III, also became physicians in the field. Together, the four Dr. Lockeys authored the book Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

The vaccine administered in this photograph is likely the one developed by Dr. Jonas Salk in 1952 during the height of the Polio epidemic in the United States. Vaccines were often given in local schools, as my mother remembers getting hers as a student at Reynolds Junior High in the late 1950s. Dr. Salk’s vaccine, along with another developed by Dr. Albert Sabin, helped lead to the eradication of Polio in the United States as well as many other countries around the world.

From PhotoBlog