“There’s no greater love than to give one’s life for one’s friends." ~ John 15:13
A little over 70 years ago, a newly-elected,
16-year-old sophomore ran laps and lifted weights in preparation for football
tryouts. On the drive home, his neck,
arms, and legs felt unusually stiff.
He went to bed with a fever that night. The next morning, his mother found him rigid; struggling
to breathe. A spinal tap later confirmed
the dreaded poliomyelitis.
In the early 50s, polio was a national scourge. Fearing the virus, cities closed pools,
theaters, schools, and churches, forcing priests to reach out to their
congregations on local radio. In 1952
alone, there were nearly 58,000 cases and more than 3,100 deaths. Many children would never walk again, some
lost the use of their arms, others never saw another summer.
Eventually, he recovered enough not to require help from the
iron lung. But, as that fear and
isolation quieted, he realized he couldn't move his limbs.
Pulley devices on his bed helped him exercise his legs. Several times a week, buoyed by warm therapy
pools, he practiced walking and sitting in a submerged aluminum chair. After 6 months, he began walking unsteadily
in a back brace with canes.
When a hospital memo went around
that Dr. Jonas Salk was seeking volunteers to test an unproven polio vaccine, Bill
didn't hesitate. His motive: To help his
two nephews avoid the crippling disease.
His parents objected at first. Should the anti-polio serum go
awry, their son could contract another, more deadly form of the disease. But when the teenager quoted Christ’s words
in John 15:13 above, they clearly understood how God works through people and
how He could use their son’s paralyzing illness for good.
On July 2, 1952, Bill Kilpatrick
(17) became the world’s Case History #1 to receive Salk’s polio vaccine. Blood tests soon revealed that he developed
permanent immunity to the virus and left the rehab center later that summer.
After a massive field trial in
1954 that involved 1.8 million schoolchildren known as “polio pioneers,” the
Salk vaccine was licensed for use on April 12, 1955, 10 years to the day after
the death of Franklin Roosevelt; himself a polio victim. Its final report, released to the media at
the University of Michigan’s Rackham Lecture Hall, listed the vaccine as “safe,
effective, and potent.”
Bill not only recovered from
polio but thrived. He graduated from college,
went to seminary and became an Episcopal Minister. He served in several dioceses, scaling back
his work in the 1980s, after developing the post-polio syndrome. He died in 2003.
