"A perfectly pitched medical mystery that will captivate you from page
one."--Wes Ely, MD, MPH, author of Every Deep-Drawn Breath, winner of
the 2022 Christopher Award for Literature.
A suspenseful, authoritative account of how the battle against a
mid-century polio epidemic sparked a revolution in medical care.
Americans knew polio as the "summer plague." In countries further North,
however, the virus arrived later in the year, slipping into the homes of
healthy children as the summer waned and the equinox approached. It was
described by one writer as "the autumn ghost."
Intensive care units and mechanical ventilation are the crucial
foundation of modern medical care: without them, the appalling death
toll of the COVID-19 pandemic would be even higher. In The Autumn
Ghost, Dr. Hannah Wunsch traces the origins of these two innovations
back to a polio epidemic in the autumn of 1952. Drawing together
compelling testimony from doctors, nurses, medical students, and
patients, Wunsch relates a gripping tale of an epidemic that changed the
world.
In vivid, captivating chapters, Wunsch tells the dramatic true story of
how insiders and iconoclasts came together in one overwhelmed hospital
in Copenhagen to save the lives of many polio patients dying of
respiratory failure. Their radical advances in care marked a turning
point in the treatment of patients around the world--from the rise of
life support and the creation of intensive care units to the evolution
of rehabilitation medicine.
Moving and informative, The Autumn Ghost will leave readers in awe of
the courage of those who battled the polio epidemic, and grateful for
the modern medical care they pioneered.
