[The pandemic that struck the boys: the Hospital Infantil de México Federico Gómez in the fight against poliomyelitis in Mexico (1943-1950).].

This article studies how the fight against poliomyelitis and the sequelae left by the disease was articulated in the Hospital Infantil de México Federico Gómez and shows how this fight required some orthopedists, such as Alfonso Tohen Zamudio, Alejandro Velasco Zimbrón, Juan Farill, and Luis Sierra Rojas, to apply surgical techniques devised by them, as well as the invention of orthopedic devices that occupied a fundamental place in the therapeutic strategy of poliomyelitis by preserving a safe gait, avoiding falls, preventing or reducing deformities, and reducing fatigue. The hospital soon became the obligatory and only concentration center for children with polio from all over the country by creating a ward to attend to acute cases.