polio

Polio, short for poliomyelitis, is defined as an acute viral inflammation that damages or destroys the nerves in the brain or spinal cord and can cause permanent paralysis that sometimes leads to death.

(noun)

  1. An example of polio was one of the most feared diseases throughout the world in the 1950s.
  2. An example of polio was the disease that was basically eradicated by a successful vaccine invented by Jonas Salk in 1955, made of a dead polio virus that was administered by means of a shot.

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See polio in Webster's New World College Dictionary

noun

poliomyelitis

See polio in American Heritage Dictionary 4

noun
Poliomyelitis.

Learn more about polio

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