In the 1940s , America was under a invariant threat frompolio , a disease that had a then - unknown cause and withering consequence , particularly in children . It fan out quickly through impure water and common hands , leading to symptoms like nausea , fatigue , fever and a rigidifying of the body .
The summers especially caused upsurge in infection , particularly around the swimming pickle , leading to post - polio paralysis and , in some cases , death . On average , 35,000 people were disabled each yr , agree to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was among the most notable multitude to get the condition , put a expression to a still uncertain disease .
The Race for a Polio Vaccine
A vaccine was urgently necessitate as scientists learn about the transmission process , including the fact that anyone could be a mail carrier . In the next few years , rival scientists Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin worked with teams in their labs on two wholly different vaccines . Sabin worked on an oral vaccine while Salk created an injectable vaccine using a " killed " interlingual rendition of poliomyelitis .
In his book " infantile paralysis : An American Story , " David M. Oshinsky writes about the urging of Salk ’s piece of work during this time :
From the very get-go of the acute anterior poliomyelitis epidemic , monkey were debate to be essential for research before human trials could take place , becoming the unvalued sub of the competitiveness to defeat the disease . It was through animal research that scientists first discover that there werethree line of the deadly disease .
The rapscallion were purchased , at a high monetary value , from India and the Philippines and ship to the United States . Many die in transit so the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis , now lie with as the March of Dimes , began supervise their import . In 1949 , a foundation established a special readiness know as Okatie Farms in rural South Carolina to serve the scallywag arriving from abroad , accord to Oshinsky .
‘The Ellis Island for Monkeys’
Okatie Farms operated in the Pinckney Colony surface area of Beaufort County in coastal South Carolina . primitively called the Pritchardville Primate Center , the 40 - acre ( 16 - hectare ) tract of land along the river was called the " Ellis Island for thousand of scalawag from India " bylocal newspapers .
Naturalist John Hamlet had the job of finding a blank for the prelate centre that was both connected to deep body of water port wine and airports but also remote enough from neighbors . The area he choseclosely approximatedthe rude home ground of the monkeys with its abundance of fly-by-night longleaf pines and a mild climate .
The monkeys were in the first place make for into Savannah , Georgia , one of the region ’s great ports , and take by truck the 30 - singular miles ( 48 kilometers ) to the farm . When air travel became more pop , they were flown via London and New York before move around by train to the Low Country .
Once they arrived at the farm , veterinarians treated the 2,000 or so rhesus and cynomolgus scallywag before clearing them for transportation to research facility around the country . The scamp spent21 daysgetting acclimate and run through a exceptional diet with scientists carefully monitoring their status . Many blend in to Salk ’s adeptness in Pittsburgh and Sabin ’s in Ann Arbor where they were injected with vaccinum to try their strength against the three polio viruses .
Few locals were cognizant of the enquiry that was going on at the farm , despite rumour of hoi polloi encountering the creature . We were unable to disclose any opposite to the research readiness , perhaps because it was not well - known and also because opposition to using animals in examination was not very coarse . In the U.S. , the movement against animal examination picked upsteam around 1980 .
" Not until much later did I discover about Pinckney Colony [ the community where Okatie was locate ] and the ' Monkey Farm ' from some friends who had survive there , " tell David M. Taub , the former city manager of Beaufort and a former scientist at the nearby Morgan Island inquiry facility .
A New Home for South Carolina Monkeys
But the farm ’s use was n’t lasting . Once Salk ’s polio vaccine was deemed a succeeder and unfreeze to the world in 1955 , the work of Okatie Farms was no longer necessary , and the facility fold in 1959 . ( Sabin ’s oral vaccinum came into use in 1961 . ) The foundation that had launch the readiness turned its tending to reducing premature births . The monkey found new homes in science lab across the country .
concord to a former employeenamed Louise Crawford , thing at the farm were just left as they were , including the monkey cage . A caretaker kept the grass and plant life at bay . The science laboratory was locked up , quick for someone new to take on the authoritative task of preparing monkeys for enquiry . But that mean solar day never came .
In 1980 , the land and its contents were sell to a development mathematical group . The lab equipment was donated to a local school day ’s science department while a Fannie Farmer claimed the former scalawag cages for his own fauna . Today the acreage along the Okatie River is mostly residential and privately owned . Thanks to Salk ’s and Sabin ’s vaccinum , poliomyelitis cases have plummeted from 350,000 in 1988 to 22 in 2017,according to the World Health Organization .
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