On this day in 1954, the Jonas Salk vaccine mass inoculation took place at Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh. Dr. Salk performed every shot personally in the school’s gymnasium, a process that took two hours. The boys and girls were in the first through third grades at the school. The children largely took their vaccines without drama, partly due to the variety of distractions presented before them. By 1962, the number of new cases had dropped to fewer than 1,000. And by the time of Salk’s death, polio was virtually extinct in the U.S. and dwindling worldwide.
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