Mimi Meade, age 7 in April 1954, winces as Dr. Richard Mulvaney inoculates her with the then-experimental Salk polio vaccine. Mrs. John Lucas, a registered nurse, holds Mimi's arm steady at a medical office in Northern Virginia. FILE/HARVEY GEORGES/ASSOCIATED PRESS View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

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Battling an epidemic POLIO NURSE SHARES MEMORIES

Lake of Woods woman publishes booklet detailing work with polio patients

Date published: 1/7/2007

By ROB HEDELT

IT'S BEEN nearly 55 years, but Jody Zogran of Lake of the Woods will never forget the haunting visage of a cute little 5-year-old named Danny.

At the time, the Orange County woman was a polio nurse at Municipal Hospital in Pittsburgh, a communicable disease facility designated as a polio hospital during the 1952 outbreak of the debilitating disease.

Working one on one with patients who had to be in devices such as iron lungs or "rocking beds" to breathe, the 22-year-old Zogran got close to patients who depended on nurses for everything from hand-feeding to suctioning of congested throats and noses.

Though she worked with a countless stream of patients, Zogran especially remembers Danny, a lad with a quick smile and blond locks.

She left one Friday afternoon, telling him she'd see him first thing Monday morning.

"When I came in after the weekend, his room was empty," she said, her eyes moistening at the memory from so long ago. "My little Danny boy was gone. I decided then and there, if I ever had a boy, I'd give him that name."

Alas, Jody and Ray Zogran had only girls.

But in the past year or two, memories like the loss of that young polio patient moved the 76-year-old Lake of the Woods retiree to share her experiences.

The result: a booklet that outlines what it was like to be on the front lines of health care against the horrible disease.

During Zogran's time at the hospital, Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine, was doing that important work several floors below her in the basement of the hospital they all called "Muni."

And while it wasn't what you'd ever call glamorous, the daily collection of bedpans--containing the live polio virus the vaccine-seekers needed to craft the cure--was crucial to the fight against polio.

"We had med students from the University of Pittsburgh standing by to run the bedpans down the three floors to the basement," she said. "We called them our little honey-dippers."

Early test subjects also were unique.

Want to hear more? To buy Zogran's book on her experiences as a polio nurse, send $5 checks to the Rappahannock-Fredericksburg Rotary Club, Attention: Ken Tillman, Box 8492, Fredericksburg, Va. 22404. Checks should be made out to the Rotary Foundation.

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Date published: 1/7/2007