[vbmoneyspender]

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is an infectious viral disease that can strike at any age and affects a person's nervous system. In the late 1940s to the early 1950s, polio crippled an average of more than 35,000 people in the United States each year; it was one of the most feared diseases of the twentieth century.

[Axenolith]

That's a typo. On their same site it states that is the total number of average cases over the years. FAR fewer people were actually "crippled".

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/polio/dis-faqs.htm