HERITAGE

Jonas Salk, Medical Sleuth and Scientist

STANLEY M. ARONSON, MD

87 Wh e n t h e i r f i r s t s o n wa s b o r n o n their virus research labora- 87 October 28, 1914, the Salks named him tory to further study vaccine EN Jonas, a curious and rarely used spelling programs. for the name of the minor prophet Jonah. The Foundation for Infan- The family, who lived in the Bronx, was tile Paralysis, more common- poor. Jonas’ parents, both immigrants ly known as the March of from czarist Russia, worked in the gar- Dimes, through its director ment industry in New York City, and the Basil O’Connor, expressed in- choice of Jonas’ college was therefore nar- terest in Salk’s theory that a rowed to City College of New York, a tu- vaccine composed of killed vi- ition-free municipal institution in upper rus particles might be as effec- Manhattan. His original intention had tive as a vaccine of modified, been to prepare himself for a career in the virulent virus particles. It had law but exposure to the mysteries of biol- been believed that any labora- ogy led him to think, rather, of medicine. tory manipulation of viruses Salk applied for and was accepted to the would so alter its capacity to School of Medicine at New York Univer- elicit an immune response as sity in Manhattan. Of the many aspects of to make it ineffective as a vac-

human disease that Salk encountered as a cine. Salk believed otherwise, Dr. Jonas Salk, 1955 [NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE] medical student, the physiological intrica- and by minimally altering the cies of the immune response to pathogens poliomyelitis virus through exposure to massive inoculation campaign was then fascinated him the most. His absorption formaldehyde, he believed that the result- undertaken in 1954 with 1.83 million in immunology was so intense that he was ing vaccine, devised from the killed virus, children receiving the Salk vaccine. In the granted a year off solely to pursue research would prove to be both immunologically following year his results were published work in the chemistry of vaccines. effective and clinically safe. in the Journal of the American Medical Upon graduation from medical school, The Foundation then chose to under- Association, and on April 12, 1955, a num- Salk completed the customary intern- write Salk’s research protocol and for the ber of monitoring committees jointly ship training at Mount Sinai Hospital in next five years he labored to perfect a safe declared the injectable vaccine to be both New York City. He then left the arena vaccine. Both he and the Foundation were safe and effective. of clinical medicine to join the Univer- under immense public pressure to hasten Salk then endeared himself to a vast sity of Michigan Medical School basic the development of this vaccine. In 1952, public when he refused to patent the sciences faculty, to conduct research on for example, 57,628 Americans, mainly vaccine and thus did not profit from his influenza vaccines. The influenza virus children, were newly afflicted with par- discoveries. v had recently been isolated, and working alytic poliomyelitis, making it the worst

with Dr. Thomas Francis, Salk undertook year on record for this dread disease. That [Editor’s Note: This article, written by the immense task of devising an influen- same year, using a trial form of the vac- the late Stanley M. Aronson, MD, found- za vaccine for the United States Army. cine, Salk inoculated a small group of vol- ing dean of Brown’s medical school and a former editor-in-chief of the Rhode Island Their efforts were successful and by 1947 unteers, including his three sons, his wife Medical Journal, appeared in Medical Salk accepted a research professorship and himself. Odysseys, a book published by the at the University of Pittsburgh, heading The results were encouraging and a Rhode Island Medical Society, in 2011.]

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Polio Pioneers

In 1954, The March of Dimes organized test- ing of the Salk polio vaccine with 1.8 mil- lion schoolchildren who became known as “Polio Pioneers” and were part of the larg- est peacetime mobilization of volunteers in our history. In all, 1.3 children took part as vaccine recipients, placebo recipients, or ob- served controls. The vaccine was declared “safe, effective, and potent” against paralytic polio on April 12, 1955. Peter Salk gets a polio shot from his father in “Hope lies in dreams, the spring of 1953, as his mother looks on. [MARCH OF DIMES, MARCHOFDIMES.ORG] in imagination and in the courage of those Children who participated in the 1954 U.S. trial of Jonas Salk’s inactivated polio vaccine trial who dare to make were dubbed “polio pioneers” and were given pins and cards to mark their status. dreams into reality.” [PIN: THE HISTORICAL MEDICAL LIBRARY OF THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF PHILADELPHIA] — Jonas Salk, MD

Child in Providence receives the vaccine at a polio During devastating polio epidemics, the March of Dimes paid for and transported thousands clinic in 1962. of iron lungs in 1946. [RHODE ISLAND DIGITAL ARCHIVES, SECRETARY OF STATE’S OFFICE, DEPT. OF HEALTH PHOTOGRAPHS]

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