RAILTON’S YOUNG POLIO VICTIMS

Rebecca Lucas , from outside the small Tasmanian  town of Railton, was just seven years old when she suddenly fell ill in 1937. She was diagnosed with infantile paralysis (polio), as was her older  sister Winifred.

The girls were admitted to the Devon Hospital at Latrobe for initial treatment. Their home, ‘Edenfields’ , was placed in quarantine for several months, as the disease was highly contagious.

From Latrobe the sisters were transferred to the Launceston General Hospital for ‘after care’ and there they remained for three years, along with many other young victims, including others from Railton. The outbreak was one of the worst in Australia, occurring before the advent of  a vaccine in the 1950s.  It was difficult for nurses to spend much time with each child due to the pressure of providing daily,  critical care.

Not surprisingly it was the awful hospital food that remained in Rebecca’s memory.  Tripe was served regularly and lots of watery, grey mince. Good grief, poor little kids!

I suspect the Lucas girls were the two cases referred to in the following letter.

Source – Advocate, 1937

It is evident from Mr Wright’s letter that there was great shame attached to the disease. In later years Rebecca would say that polio victims and those close to them were shunned.  Because polio was an enterovirus, transmitted  via fecal-oral contamination, it was associated with poor hygiene. It should be remembered that many people, especially  in rural communities, did not have indoor sanitation at the time.

Rebecca  remembered being treated at Launceston by Miss Margaret Mack, who had recently qualified in the new field of physiotherapy. Miss Mack became a well known identity in Tasmania, and was much loved. She later served in World War  WWII.

Miss Mack in later life, with her professional shingle.

The most remarkable thing about the girls’ long hospitalization was the dedication of Mrs Lucas. Every Sunday she got up, milked the cows on the family’s  small farm, then rode her bike fifty six miles from Railton to Launceston on a gravel road to visit her daughters.

Rebecca still wore callipers when she left hospital, but definitely inherited her mother’s spirit. She slowly improved and even managed to ride her bike again. She did exceptionally well when she finally returned to school. After winning  a university scholarship she trained as a teacher in Hobart. She later married, becoming Rebecca Round.

Rebecca as a young woman. (Source – findagrave.com)

In 2011 Rebecca was interviewed by Frances Rush in Hobart,  as part of a polio oral history project. During the interview she  provided an explanation of how she may have contracted polio.  She said that she and her sisters would walk from their farm to the railway line, where they would pick watercress for salads. Now in those times the train lavatories emptied directly onto the tracks. Rebecca believes that flies  attracted to the sewage probably landed on the watercress, which the youngsters would eat unwashed, as they walked back home. It’s a ghastly, but quite credible theory.

Rebecca Round (nee Lucas)  died in 2020, aged 90.

FOR A LINK TO THE FULL ORAL HISTORY OF HER  LIFE, CLICK HERE.