Jacobs, Charlotte (Author)
When a waiting world learned on April 12, 1955, that Jonas Salk had successfully created a vaccine to prevent poliomyelitis, he became a hero overnight. Born in a New York tenement, humble in manner, Salk had all the makings of a twentieth-century icon-a knight in a white coat. In the wake of his achievement, he received a staggering number of awards and honors; for years his name ranked with Gandhi and Churchill on lists of the most revered people. And yet the one group whose adulation he craved--the scientific community--remained ominously silent. "The worst tragedy that could have befallen me was my success," Salk later said. "I knew right away that I was through-cast out." In the first complete biography of Jonas Salk, Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs unravels Salk's story to reveal an unconventional scientist and a misunderstood and vulnerable man. Despite his incredible success in developing the polio vaccine, Salk was ostracized by his fellow scientists, who accused him of failing to give proper credit to other researchers and scorned his taste for media attention. Even before success catapulted him into the limelight, Salk was an inscrutable man disliked by many of his peers. Driven by an intense desire to aid mankind, he was initially oblivious and eventually resigned to the personal cost--as well as the costs suffered by his family and friends. And yet Salk remained, in the eyes of the public, an adored hero. Based on hundreds of personal interviews and unprecedented access to Salk's sealed archives, Jacobs' biography offers the most complete picture of this complicated figure. Salk's story has never been fully told; until now, his role in preventing polio has overshadowed his part in co-developing the first influenza vaccine, his effort to meld the sciences and humanities in the magnificent Salk Institute, and his pioneering work on AIDS. A vivid and intimate portrait, this will become the standard work on the remarkable life of Jonas Salk.
...MoreReview Dora Vargha (2016) Review of "Jonas Salk: A Life". Social History of Medicine (pp. 652-653).
Review María-José Báguena (2016) Review of "Jonas Salk: A Life". Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (pp. 196-197).
Review Suzanne Bourgeois (2016) Review of "Jonas Salk: A Life". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 683-684).
Article
Axelsson, Per;
(2012)
The Cutter Incident and the Development of a Swedish Polio Vaccine, 1952--1957
(/isis/citation/CBB001211096/)
Book
Paolo Leoncini;
Paolo Neri;
(2022)
La guerra dei vaccini. Cosa può insegnare la vicenda di Albert. B. Sabin
(/isis/citation/CBB232441840/)
Article
Rodríguez Sánchez, J. A.;
Seco Calvo, J.;
(2009)
Las campañas de vacunación contra la poliomielitis en España en 1963
(/isis/citation/CBB000931888/)
Book
Kluger, Jeffrey;
(2004)
Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio
(/isis/citation/CBB000501455/)
Book
Conis, Elena;
(2014)
Vaccine Nation: America's Changing Relationship with Immunization
(/isis/citation/CBB001422034/)
Thesis
Mawdsley, S. E.;
(cited 2012)
Fighting Polio: Selling the Gamma Globulin Field Trials, 1950--1953
(/isis/citation/CBB001567417/)
Book
Phillips, Howard;
(2012)
Epidemics: The Story of South Africa's Five Most Lethal Human Diseases
(/isis/citation/CBB001421023/)
Article
Day, Alison;
(2009)
“An American Tragedy”. The Cutter Incident and Its Implications for the Salk Polio Vaccine in New Zealand, 1955--1960
(/isis/citation/CBB001232089/)
Book
Porras Gallo, María Isabel;
María Isabel / Báguena Cervellera, María José / Ayarzagüena Sanz, Mariano / Martín Espinosa, Noelia María Porras Gallo;
Ayarzagüena Sanz, Mariano;
Noelia María Martín Espinosa;
(2016)
La erradicación y el control de las enfermedades infecciosas
(/isis/citation/CBB703301554/)
Article
Vargha, Dora;
(2014)
Between East and West: Polio Vaccination across the Iron Curtain in Cold War Hungary
(/isis/citation/CBB001420184/)
Article
Ballester, R.;
Porras, M-I;
(2009)
El significado histórico de las encuestas de seroprevalencia como tecnología de laboratorio aplicada a las campañas de inmunización. El caso de la poliomielitis en España
(/isis/citation/CBB000931887/)
Book
Burnham, John Chynoweth;
(2015)
Health Care in America: A History
(/isis/citation/CBB001422615/)
Book
Wilson, Daniel J.;
(2009)
Polio
(/isis/citation/CBB001031562/)
Article
Fantini, Bernardino;
(2012)
Polio in Italy
(/isis/citation/CBB001211097/)
Book
Gareth Millward;
(2019)
Vaccinating Britain: Mass vaccination and the public since the Second World War
(/isis/citation/CBB045417876/)
Article
Tara Suri;
(2022)
Between Simians and Cell Lines: Rhesus Monkeys, Polio Research, and the Geopolitics of Tissue Culture (1934–1954)
(/isis/citation/CBB316653885/)
Book
Oshinsky, David M.;
(2005)
Polio: An American Story
(/isis/citation/CBB000641645/)
Book
Eugenia Tognotti;
(2020)
Vaccinare i bambini tra obbligo e persuasione: Tre secoli di controversie. Il caso dell'Italia
(/isis/citation/CBB142911314/)
Book
William W. Foege;
Jimmy Carter;
(2018)
The Task Force for Child Survival: Secrets of Successful Coalitions
(/isis/citation/CBB819770729/)
Book
Smith, Jane S.;
(1990)
Patenting the sun: Polio and the Salk vaccine
(/isis/citation/CBB000050017/)
Be the first to comment!