As discussed before, John Kolmer's version of a polio vaccine failed the test of safety (048). But that doesn't mean we can't learn anything from him, especially about polio in general. Keeping in mind that he did have a conflict of interest, being a vaccine inventor.
In this article, he speculated that polio would make a good target for vaccine prevention, because 1) it was scary, killing at least 73 in 1000 victims and even up to 43 in 100 in some epidemics, and paralyzing another 25-45%; 2) those who survived seemed to be immune and have anti-polio antibodies throughout life.
He also noted that, although infants under 1 year old seemed to have temporary immunity transferred from their mothers, this faded over time, such that a large proportion of children under 10 were susceptible to the disease. So they'd be good candidates for a vaccine.
He discusses a bunch of other stuff, especially his own vaccine-making efforts, but nothing that seems particularly important.
Citation: Kolmer, J. A. Susceptibility and immunity: In relation to vaccination in acute anterior poliomyelitis. JAMA 105, 1956–1963 (1935).
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