Older than Antibiotics & Vaccines. My Life Before & After
According to a June 10, 2025, U.S. Measles Tracker Report1, there have been 1171 cases
of measles so far this year. Of those cases, 94% were unvaccinated. Two children and
one adult have died. In March, I had lunch with an unvaccinated granddaughter who
had never heard of measles, didn’t know that it can be a deadly disease, or that we
have now exceeded the total number of cases (285) reported in all of 2024. She had
never heard of polio or an iron lung.
This granddaughter is 20 and no longer needs parental consent to be vaccinated, so we had a long talk about how I, at age 81, remember a time when there were no vaccines other than for smallpox2, the first one developed, and no antibiotics that we now take for granted will cure infections like strep throat, earaches, or pneumonia. She was amazed that such a time existed. This was the nudge I needed to write what life was like for me before vaccines and antibiotics.
Penicillin
Penicillin was first discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928 and was widely used to treat infection in soldiers during the latter part of WWII. Penicillin V, the first version proved to be effective in children, wasn’t developed until 1948, and the first large series of penicillin doses wasn’t administered to 106 children until 1953 in Germany. This coincides with my memory of being given difficult-to-get penicillin when I was in 4th grade that same year.
I first contracted strep throat, back then a terrifying disease because it could morph into rheumatic fever that was known to cause permanent heart damage in children. When my strep throat became rheumatic fever, I was prescribed total bed rest to try to prevent any strain on my heart. I remember my father carrying me to the bathroom so I wouldn’t have to walk. Because I was expected to miss weeks of school—a tutor came to the house to help me keep up with my schoolwork.
Somehow, our family doctor was able to get penicillin for me, with the hope that it might cure the rheumatic fever and prevent damage to my heart. It was a brown liquid that tasted like it came straight from the mold first discovered to stop the growth of some types of bacteria. I had to take a teaspoon of this dreadful-tasting stuff 2-3 times a day. My mother gave me a piece of peppermint saltwater taffy after each dose to get the taste out of my mouth. To this day, I can’t look at peppermint taffy without thinking of that awful taste. The good news is that my rheumatic fever was cured without any damage to my heart.
Polio Vaccine
Polio was an even scarier childhood disease because it could cause varying degrees
of paralysis, leaving at least 1 percent of those who contracted it unable to use
their legs, arms and even their lungs. Those seriously affected were confined to life
in an “iron lung.” “Designed by industrial hygienist Philip Drinker and physiologist
Louis Agassiz Shaw Jr., both of Harvard University, the device would continue to be
associated with polio, gaining prominence as both a life-saving invention and a frightening
symbol of the disease’s potential effects. Before Drinker and Shaw’s invention, there
were few methods for inducing artificial respiration.
Polio haunted my summers. What I remember most was the outbreak in 1952. A young girl in our neighborhood contracted the paralytic version of the disease and was paralyzed from the neck down. My mother was terrified that one of us would be next. We were not allowed to go outside. It wasn’t known how polio spread, but my mother thought flies were a prime suspect. Our doors and windows were kept shut so that no flies could get in. If one did manage to make it past the barriers, Mom wouldn’t rest until it was killed and disposed of and everything it had touched disinfected.
Now we know that polio is caused by a virus which spreads easily through contact with the feces of an infected person or less commonly through droplets when they cough or sneeze. It is also spread through contaminated food or water. Not Iron Lung in a museum washing hands before and after using a bathroom can increase the spread of polio. It mostly affects children under five. With the development of Jonas Salk’s and Albert Sabin’s polio vaccines, in the mid-1950s through early 1960s polio cases dropped off dramatically in America. Today, all continents except Asia have been declared polio free, but people my age and older have not forgotten the terror the disease caused or the gratitude we felt when vaccination made us feel safe.
Childhood Diseases
Other childhood diseases that we were expected to contract were mumps, chickenpox, and measles:
Mumps:
For most children, mumps is a mild disease. It is best known for causing puffy cheeks and a tender, swollen jaw. They may feel extremely ill and be unable to eat because of jaw pain. In rare cases, mumps can cause more severe complications, especially when contracted by adults. It can even be lethal. I was the last of nine siblings to contract the mumps at age 12. I will never forget it because my symptoms started on Christmas Day in 1957. I was confined to my room for more than a week.
Chickenpox:
I was still in elementary school when chicken pox infected our family. I had a mild
case and carry no scars from the painful, itching blisters, but many children were
not so lucky and had quite a few disfiguring scars, especially on their faces. We
were told to “never scratch” the pox no matter how much they itched. If babies caught
chickenpox, they might have as few as 2-3 blisters that would make them immune in
the future. Some parents exposed their children to chickenpox while they were young
to prevent them from having a more serious case. As parents, we suffered through two
outbreaks of chickenpox. In the summer of 1975, our first three children had chickenpox,
but we had two more in 1976 and 1980 and they had to endure chickenpox, because a
vaccination was not widely administered until 1995. Now chickenpox is rare in the
U.S, but in the early 1990s, more than 4 million people got chickenpox, hospitalizations
reached 10,500 to 13,500, and 100 to 150 died. Half of those deaths were children.
Measles:
As I mentioned above, despite the available and highly effective vaccination, measles is making an alarming comeback. Either because of the fear of vaccines spreading across the country or the lack of knowledge or concern about the disease, many children are unvaccinated, and the number of cases is expected to climb exponentially. The virus is one of the most contagious infectious diseases to exist; so contagious, in fact, that 90 percent of unvaccinated people who are exposed contract it. Additionally, one in five of those people end up hospitalized, according to the CDC.
The best way to protect against measles is to get the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Children may get the MMRV vaccine instead, which also protects against chickenpox. Most people who are vaccinated with MMR & MMRV will be protected for life. High rates of vaccination have made these diseases much less common in the United States. Maybe if younger people knew what it was like in the days before vaccines became available, they would be more widely used.
COVID & Flu Vaccines
There are already children alive today who won’t remember the COVID Pandemic, and there are parents who do not think that the COVID vaccine is safe. To me it seems like a modern miracle. For almost two years, we didn’t dare go out without a mask. Grocery stores had special hours for seniors or other high-risk shoppers. All public events were canceled. We now know that a similar vaccine was being worked on before the pandemic hit and had been tested for human safety, the “quick arrival” of the vaccine seemed like an answer to innumerable prayers. This fall I had a flu and a COVID vaccine on the same day with no side effects except one sore arm. And yet, flu season affected and hospitalized many people who don’t trust that vaccine, either.
Looking back to that time in my life when there were neither vaccines nor antibiotics, I can only be grateful that most of my grandchildren and great grandchildren will take for granted that shots they don’t even remember getting will protect them from diseases that their parents could only get immunity to from living through the disease. I want my descendants to know how blessed they are to have the vaccines and antibiotics that prevent or cure so many illnesses today.
*U.S. Measles Tracker | International Vaccine Access Center
**From 1958 to 1977, the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a global vaccination campaign that eradicated smallpox, making it the only human disease to be eradicated.