14-04-2025
- Health
- Wall Street Journal
A Souvenir From Dr. Jonas Salk, Circa 1955
In 'When Salvation Rode the Rails' (op-ed, April 2), Bob Greene uses a polio patient's harrowing cross-country train ride with a malfunctioning chest respirator to pay tribute to those who stepped forward to help save the woman's life. Of them and myriad other Americans, Mr. Greene writes: 'They are able to accomplish something quietly profound: to give people they have never met a chance to breathe another day.' This sentiment applies to an untold number of Americans but also to Dr. Jonas Salk, the virologist whose injectable polio vaccine Mr. Greene also mentions.
I contracted polio in August 1955 after receiving two of the three then-prescribed Salk polio-vaccine doses. After undergoing two weeks of hospital treatment and two months of bed rest, I learned I was the only patient in that hospital's polio ward not developing any paralysis. The vaccine allowed me a life of physical activity, including in high-school and college sports and other forms of recreation.
