For many people the terror of the summer of 1916 involved shark attacks along the Jersey Shore, but there was a far more insidious killer striking fear into the population: infantile paralysis, today called polio. It had started in Brooklyn in June, but despite efforts to contain the disease, it had spread rapidly. Since it mainly affected the young, parents fled cities and did whatever they could to protect their children. The Asbury Park Press of July 24 shows just how desperate some were.

“News of the infantile paralysis epidemic reached the American liner St. Paul by wireless in mid-Atlantic. Harold B.