Polio was terrifying. We weren't allowed, as kids, to go anywhere out among the public during outbreaks. No going to the pool in the summer, or the Y, the library, even shopping with mom. There was a handful of kids that I went to school with who had caught it when very young. They had various disabilities -- needing to walk with canes, one boy had a limp and withered hand. As adults they may develop post-polio syndrome. (https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders...on/Fact-Sheets/Post-Polio-Syndrome-Fact-Sheet)
People who are parents today aren't old enough to remember the polio days. Or being kept away from other kids when measles, rubella, mumps were making the rounds -- at least, that was my mom's strategy. Some parents deliberately exposed their kids to sick children when young on the theory that if they got it now it wouldn't be so bad, and they'd be immune. I had titers drawn during my first pregnancy that said I was immune to all those childhood diseases even though I never had them. Did get a small pox scar though. None of my kids (all born after 1972) have gotten a small pox vax.
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