Jonas Salk, American Virologist

Marion Folsom, U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, presents the American microbiologist, Jonas Edward Salk (b.1914), with a medal in 1956. In the 40s, other microbiologists such as the American, Enders had developed new techniques to produce cultures of polio virus in quantities adequate for experimentation. This enabled Salk to obtain in 1952 a vaccine which he tried with success on children who had recovered from polio. He then tried it, again with success, on children without a history of polio and by 1955 the vaccine was prepared for worldwide distribution. Together with the vaccine obtained by the American microbiologist Sabin in 1957, the incidence of poliomyelitis was substantially reduced by the end of the 1960s

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Folsom Jonas Microbiologist Microbiology Polio Researcher Salk Vaccine Virologist Virology

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