Old Photo Shows Hospital Patients Sunbathing on Deck

Claim:

A black-and-white photograph authentically shows patients lying in hospital beds on a sundeck.

Rating:

A black-and-white photo allegedly showing patients lying in hospital beds on a sundeck was shared on X in early December 2024, receiving more than 9.4 million views.

The photograph is authentic and indeed shows patients soaking up the sun while lying in hospital beds.

A reverse image search led to a blog post published by the University College Dublin (UCD) Centre for the History of Medicine on June 10, 2013.

The blog captioned the picture:

Group of polio and arthritic patients on the sundeck, USA, undated photograph. Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine, Images from the History of Medicine Collection. A015237

The U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine hosts the photo (archived) under the title: “Group of poliomyelitis and arthritic patients on the sun deck.” The database captioned the image:

Bird’s-eye view of a rooftop deck. A row of hospital beds line each side of the deck. On each of the beds partially clad men lie on their backs and sun themselves. Several medical attendants stand among the patients.

According to the National Library of Medicine, the photo was captured in the United States at some point in the 1900s. However, the entry did not provide further information about exactly where or when the picture was taken, nor did it explain why the “partially clad men” were sunning themselves.

The picture featuring 20 beds in total is shown below.

(NIH/NLM)

Per the World Health Organization (WHO), polio is a “highly infectious disease… that attacks the nervous system and can lead to spinal and respiratory paralysis and in some cases death.” The United Nations added:

Polio has existed since prehistoric times – ancient Egyptian images show children walking with canes, with withered limbs characteristic of the disease.

While it affected children around the world for millennia, the first known clinical description of polio, by British doctor Michael Underwood, was not until 1789, and it was formally recognized as a condition in 1840 by German physician Jakob Heine.

The world saw frequent epidemics of polio in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A major outbreak in New York City killed more than 2,000 people in 1916 and another outbreak killed more than 3,000 people across the U.S. in 1952, according to the WHO.

Polio vaccines became publicly available in 1955 and led to the near eradication of the disease globally over decades. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), polio cases have decreased by more than 99% since 1988 and vaccines have prevented an estimated 20 million cases of paralysis in children. 

Sources