Dissertation Vargha for Submission
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!2013 Dora Vargha ALL RIGHTS RESERVED IRON CURTAIN, IRON LUNGS: GOVERNING POLIO IN COLD WAR HUNGARY 1952-1963 by DORA VARGHA A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School, New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in History written under the direction of Paul Hanebrink and approved by ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey May, 2013 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Iron Curtain, Iron Lungs: Governing Polio in Cold War Hungary 1952-1963 by DORA VARGHA Dissertation director: Paul Hanebrink Iron Curtain, Iron Lungs uses the series of polio epidemics in communist Hungary to study a global public health emergency in the midst of an international political crisis: the Cold War. Based on extensive, thus far unexplored archival material, medical and popular literature, newspapers, audiovisual sources, memoirs and oral history interviews, the dissertation argues that due to the particularities of polio, unique spaces of cooperation opened between antagonistic sides while Cold War concepts simultaneously influenced policies and practices of disease prevention and treatment. Polio became an issue that reached over Cold War divisions, due to four attributes of the disease: the new phenomenon of epidemic polio in the 20th century; the importance of children as the main age group of the disease; the debilitating effects of the virus; and that polio was a global disease. The dissertation analyses the history of polio in Hungary at multiple registers. On an international level, it asks how Cold War divisions can be re-evaluated when viewed through the lens of a disease that disregarded borders and ideologies. On a national level, the dissertation investigates how post-war societies and nascent political systems dealt with an epidemic that worked against their modernist projects. On an individual level, it ii raises questions about definitions of treatment, authority of care and investigates the boundary between professional and lay knowledge. Iron Curtain, Iron Lungs presents a new approach both to Cold War history and to the history of medicine. The dissertation shifts attention from the two superpowers to an Eastern European state and by doing so, throws new light on Cold War interactions and the effect of international politics on personal experiences. The unique geopolitical situation of Hungary on the boundary of the Iron Curtain and the construction of a new communist regime makes the country the ideal ground to understand the influence of Cold War in forming global health responses to epidemic crises. With vaccine first arriving from the West, followed by a new serum from the East, the Hungarian story highlights issues of international politics, experimentation and standardization in epidemic prevention. Furthermore, a focus on Hungary allows linking the intimate world of families with national and international agendas through the care for disabled children with polio. iii Acknowledgements I have been privileged to share my work with and receive insightful comments, suggestions and guidance from several academic communities. First of all, I would like to express gratitude to my dissertation committee: Paul Hanebrink, Julie Livingston, Bonnie Smith and Keith Wailoo for their advice, their continuous and tireless efforts in reading and re-reading countless versions of my work, and for the inspiring conversations that pushed my research forward. Working with such an exceptional committee has made the dissertation process a most rewarding experience. My dissertation research benefited greatly from generous awards from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Karen Johnson Freeze Fellowship Fund, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Philadelphia Area Center for the History of Science (PACHS) and the Graduate School of Rutgers University. Temma Kaplan, Dina Fainberg, Bridget Gurtler, Anita Kurimay, Yvette Florio Lane and Tal Zalmanovich offered their friendship and advice in formulating the project in its early stages. Gergely Baics pointed out crucial sources, connected me with archivists and along with Caterina Pizzigoni provided me with a roof over my head and encouraging words in the most stressful times of the process. I thank Friederike Kind-Kovacs for inviting me to discover the richness of European scholarship on the history of childhood. At the Center for Race and Ethnicity, under direction of Keith Wailoo at Rutgers University, Mia Bay, Jeffrey Dowd, Anantha Sudhakar and Melissa Stein introduced me to the benefits of interdisciplinary work. A wonderful and generous group of scholars at iv Department II of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin was always available to make time and read and comment on several chapters of the dissertation, among them Elena Aronova, Etienne Benson, Dan Bouk, Sandra Eder, Markus Friedrich, Yulia Frumer, Courtney Fullilove, Harun Kucuk, András Németh, Christine von Oertzen, Skúli Sigurdsson, Kathleen Vongsathorn and Oriana Walker. I would especially like to thank Lorraine Daston for the opportunity to be part of this community. I am grateful for the assistance of the archivists at the Hungarian National Archives, especially to Piroska Kocsis, whose advice and thorough knowledge of the materials was invaluable for my work. At the Budapest City Archives András Lugosi offered his expertise to guide me in my search for hospital papers and party documents. Furthermore, I would like to thank archivist Marie Villemin and librarian Tomas Allen at the World Health Organization, and Daniel Palmieri historical research officer at the International Committee of the Red Cross for helping my research. Members of the National Federation of Disabled Persons' Association in Hungary helped my work in many ways and most generously contributed their time and stories to the dissertation research. I am indebted to my family for their continued support in my scholarly adventures and their readiness to keep up with my haphazard travels as I was pursuing my doctorate. My father, György Vargha, has been the inspiration that brought me to this dissertation in the first place, while my mother, Etelka Fátyol, served as a model of how to successfully balance career and family life as a woman. My sister, Zsuzsanna Vargha never failed to make time from her own academic work to read portions of my dissertation and to affront me with annoyingly astute questions. My son, Óscar, who was born during the v dissertation process, kept me sane and grounded in this endeavor and most sweetly endured my late nights of writing and absences due to research trips and conferences. None of this would have been possible without my best friend, partner and most thorough reader and critic, João Rangel de Almeida, who supported me with great comments, amazing meals and never-ending cheerfulness in the most difficult times. It is to him that I dedicate this dissertation. A manuscript containing sections from Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 was submitted for publication to the Bulletin of the History of Medicine journal on August 18, 2012, titled “Between East and West: Polio Vaccination Across the Iron Curtain in Cold War Hungary.” vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION ........................................................................... ii! Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... iv! List of Figures................................................................................................................... ix! Introduction....................................................................................................................... 1! Chapter 1: The power of polio....................................................................................... 26! A 20th-century disease: new challenges unite............................................................... 31! A global issue................................................................................................................ 43! Infantile paralysis: children as catalysts for Cold War cooperation ............................. 52! Disabled bodies and post-war production..................................................................... 69! Chapter 2: “Parents, beware!” Vaccination efforts and the politics of prevention.. 78! Epidemics between 1952 and 1957............................................................................... 81! The unfolding of the 1957 epidemic............................................................................. 95! The West German hero ............................................................................................... 105! Vaccinating the nation ................................................................................................ 113! Chapter 3: Needles and tea: vaccine evaluation and the switch from Salk to Sabin ......................................................................................................................................... 124! Defining success ......................................................................................................... 126! An unexpected epidemic: polio in 1959 ..................................................................... 135! Placing the blame.......................................................................................................