Julia C. Spring

Twice Dr. Eddy made a house call because of me.

The first time was on a hot July day in 1953 when I, age seven, ran a fever during a polio outbreak. I didn’t have the poliovirus—but a year later I got the vaccine before my big sisters did.

The other time was when I was nine and had the mumps. I asked Mommy to take down “the hanging thing in the hall”—which nobody else saw. She tried to take my temperature, and I bit off the thermometer, fortunately above the mercury bulb. I spit it out on her order.

Daddy called Dr. Eddy, who used his thermometer: 103. He asked me to bring my pointer finger to my nose. I poked myself in the eye.