02/24/2026
On this day in 1954, children at Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh received the first injections of Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine. Dr. Salk displayed his confidence in the vaccine by using it on his family during the trial stage.
Within just a few years, the Salk vaccine decreased the number of polio cases in the United States by fifty percent, and by the early 1960s, the number of Americans contracting polio fell to a few thousand annually.
💉 Discover the story behind a remarkable public health experiment in THE POLIO CRUSADE, now streaming on YouTube and the PBS app → https://youtu.be/kk2IDigWBN8
📸: Dr. Jonas Salk vaccinates his son, Darrell, with the polio vaccine. (March of Dimes Foundation)