Polio

When Duncan Guthrie was told that his toddler daughter Janet had polio in 1949, he would have been just one parent among many thousands to receive the bleak diagnosis.

Duncan would have known that his little girl faced possible paralysis or even death. He may even have seen alarming pictures of children encased in iron lungs, the artificial respirators that were to become an all too familiar sight on hospital wards after polio epidemics had attacked children's nervous systems and left them unable to breathe unaided.

Out of love for 18-month-old Janet and a determination to take action against polio, Duncan set up the National Fund for Poliomyelitis Research in 1952.

The fund raised money to back prestigious research projects which contributed to the bank of knowledge that eventually made a vaccine against polio a reality. In 1950, a polio epidemic affected nearly 8,000 people in the UK. Today, the UK has no new cases of polio on record.

We are proud that the National Fund for Poliomyelitis Research was the forerunner of our Charity, Action Medical Research.