Polio is a serious and harmful acute infectious disease caused by poliovirus. Children are more likely to develop the disease, but that does not mean that adults are immune to it. In the final analysis, this is a viral infectious disease. The specific causes of Mr. Roosevelt’s illness are available online and will not be detailed here.
In addition, there is also a theory that Roosevelt did not have polio at all and was misdiagnosed. After his death, doctors believed he actually suffered from Guillain-Barre syndrome. This may be the most famous misdiagnosis in history. Two weeks before he was paralyzed, Roosevelt visited a Boy Scout camp. Roosevelt's attendance at this gathering played an important role in his diagnosis, as the gathering of children provided a possible origin of the poliovirus. Roosevelt's diagnostician, Robert Lovett, had expertise in the field of polio and may have made an deviant diagnosis.
For decades after Roosevelt's death, doctors and scientists struggled to diagnose polio. Roosevelt's advanced age (39) made him an unlikely candidate for the disease. Roosevelt also experienced paralysis in both legs, and the polio virus typically affects one side of the body. Poliovirus does not usually affect the intestines, but the events of August 9 left Roosevelt without control of his intestines. The future president continued to experience pain in his legs, among other sensations. Among the mixed diagnoses, Roosevelt presented with fever, the main diagnostic criterion for polio. There were also clinical cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome during this time, with two soldiers diagnosed with the disease in 1916 using spinal fluid samples. An increase in protein levels on the test without an increase in white blood cells in the spinal fluid is a key factor in the diagnosis of Guillain-Barre syndrome. Perhaps the humble Guillain-Barre syndrome was completely unfamiliar to any of Roosevelt's doctors at the time.
If a doctor made a diagnosis of Roosevelt-Guillain-Barre syndrome, his prognosis would be a little off. Guillain-Barré syndrome is a viral infection of the body and has no specific treatment. The disease causes cells to attack other cells, eventually wearing down the myelin sheath that surrounds nerves. Guillain-Barre is currently treated with immunoglobulins in the hope that the body's immune system will attack these foreign proteins rather than its own. Immune globulin therapy did not exist in Roosevelt's time, but if it had, it would have been very expensive. Guillain-Barre is also treated through the difficult process of plasma exchange. Plasma exchange removes blood and isolates white and red blood cells before reintroducing them into the body's cells. In the shortest possible time, plasma exchange reduces the patient's plasma volume and removes antibodies that attack the patient's body.
Due to the paucity of available treatments, diagnosing Roosevelt with Guillain-Barré syndrome had no greater benefit than diagnosing him with polio. Research published in the Journal of Medical Biography in 2012 analyzed the probability of Roosevelt's symptoms, which suggested that Roosevelt may have had Guillain-Barré syndrome rather than suffering polio.
Before running for president, Roosevelt did not hide his diagnosis and established a polio rehabilitation center in Georgia. He did not downplay the suffering role in his life, hide his weak legs behind a podium, or rely on an aide or his son to help him stand in public, or order secret equipment to compensate for his wheelchair. image. As president, Roosevelt established the National Polio Foundation in 1937, an organization headed by polio victim and Roosevelt's former law partner, Vasily O'Connor. The National Polio Foundation, later known as the March of Dimes, used donations to sponsor universities to find a cure for polio and led to the successful use of the polio vaccine in 1952. A final verdict on whether Roosevelt had polio or Guillain-Barre syndrome is impossible and will remain so. The only way to accurately diagnose whether Roosevelt had Guillain-Barré syndrome was to test the spinal fluid. No matter how curious scientists are, there's no way we're going to exhume the body of one of our greatest presidents to test for proteins that have long since degraded.
Although we will never truly know whether Roosevelt suffered from polio, Roosevelt's experience drew attention to the disease in human history and prevented many more people from suffering paralysis and death. The disease can be traced back to ancient Egypt. This possible misdiagnosis could have led to a better outcome.