Jonas Salk

Jonas Salk


Jonas Salk
(1914-1995)
Jonas Salk was the first born of Daniel B. Salk and Dora
Press. He was born in New York, New York on October 28, 1914.
He died in La Jolla, California on June 23, 1995.
Salk attended Townsend Harris High School for the gifted and
received his B.A. from College of the City of New York in 1934.
He received his M.D. from New York University in 1930 and
interned at Mount Sinai Hospital, where he studied immunology.
He was recognized as an able scientist by his teachers. Also,
during World War 2, he was a participant in the army’s effort
to develop an effective vaccine for influenza.
Salk was restless and wanted freedom from the projects
of his senior colleagues so he could try out his own ideas. He
accepted a position at the University of Pittsburgh Medical
School. And at that time, had no record of a basic search in
medicine. Salk got the space he needed and quickly put
together a team of laboratory workers to help him study
infectious diseases.
Salk’s success in developing a vaccine for polio depended
on discoveries of many other researchers in immunology and
virology. Originally polio could only be grown in live monkeys.
Attempts in the 1930’s to use a vaccine prepared from the
killed extracts of infected monkey brains resulted in deaths of
several children. It was also thought that polio only grew in
nerve tissues but infected humans produced large amounts of
viruses in their feces, suggesting it also grew in intestines. IT
was later found that polio consists of at least 3 different
types of viruses.
By 1954, all the difficulties were resolved. Salk then
began the crucial human experiments to confirm the results
taken on monkeys. He and his workers immunized themselves and
their families and began field testing the vaccine. The first 7
million doses of the vaccine were given in 1955. Salk then gave
a nationwide program from 1956 through 1958. Almost
immediately after this program of immunization then United
States was polio-free.
Salk’s killed virus vaccine required 4 injections, one for
each type plus a booster. Although the live vaccine, made by
Albert Sabin, took fewer doses, it was used more frequently in
the following years. Polio had already been defeated and in
the public’s mind, Salk had become a national hero. Although
nominated, he was never named a Nobel laureate, but among his
honors were Presidential Citation in 1955, a Congressional Gold
Medal in 1955, the Albert Lasker Award in 1956, the Mellon
Institute Award in 1969, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom
in 1977. He received the Robert Koch Medal from Germany,
while France named him Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur. His
greatest reward was the knowledge of being instrumental in
the eradication of a terrible disease. And as Salk once said,
“Nothing happens quite by chance. It’s a question of accretion
of information and experience.

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