美國100位歷史名人榜(34)：Jonas Salk @ 愛薇塔樂學英文

美國100位歷史名人榜(34)：Jonas Salk

His vaccine for polio eradicated one of the world’s worst plagues.他的疫苗消滅了世界上最可怕的疾病

His vaccine for polio eradicated one of the world’s worst plagues.
他的疫苗消滅了世界上最可怕的疾病——脊髓灰質炎。

Jonas Edward Salk (October 28, 1914 – June 23, 1995) was an American medical researcher and virologist, best known for his discovery and development of the first safe and effective polio vaccine. He was born in New York City to parents from Russian-Jewish immigrant families. Although they themselves did not have much formal education, they were determined to see their children succeed. While attending medical school at New York University, he stood out from his peers not just because of his academic prowess, but because he chose to do medical research instead of becoming a physician.

Until 1955, when the Salk vaccine was introduced, polio was considered the most frightening public health problems of the postwar United States. Annual epidemics were increasingly devastating. The 1952 epidemic was the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year, 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis[1], with most of the victims being children. The "public reaction was to a plague", said historian William O'Neill. "Citizens of urban areas were to be terrified every summer when this frightful visitor returned." According to a 2009 PBS documentary, "Apart from the atomic bomb, America's greatest fear was polio. As a result, scientists were in a frantic race to find a way to prevent or cure the disease. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the world's most recognized victim of the disease and founded the organization that would fund the development of a vaccine.

In 1947, Salk accepted an appointment to the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In 1948, he undertook a project funded by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to determine the number of different types of polio virus. Salk saw an opportunity to extend this project towards developing a vaccine against polio, and, together with the skilled research team he assembled, devoted himself to this work for the next seven years. The field trial set up to test the Salk vaccine was, according to O'Neill, "the most elaborate program of its kind in history, involving 20,000 physicians and public health officers, 64,000 school personnel, and 220,000 volunteers." Over 1,800,000 school children took part in the trial. When news of the vaccine's success was made public on April 12, 1955, Salk was hailed as a "miracle worker", and the day "almost became a national holiday." His sole focus had been to develop a safe and effective vaccine as rapidly as possible, with no interest in personal profit. When he was asked in a televised interview who owned the patent to the vaccine, Salk replied: "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"

In 1960, he founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, which is today a center for medical and scientific research. He continued to conduct research and publish books, including Man Unfolding (1972), The Survival of the Wisest (1973), World Population and Human Values: A New Reality (1981), and Anatomy of Reality: Merging of Intuition and Reason (1983). Dr. Salk's last years were spent searching for a vaccine against HIV.

約拿斯·E（愛德華）·索爾克（1914～1995），一名美國醫生和醫學研究者。在20世紀50年代早期，使用由美國科學家約翰?F?恩德斯（John F. Enders）、湯瑪斯?H?韋勒（Thomas H. Weller）和弗雷德里克?C?羅賓斯（Frederick C. Robbins）發明的技術，索爾克第一次成功的發現了脊髓灰質炎疫苗。他的工作得到國家小兒麻痹症基金會（National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis，現在叫做National Foundation）的支持，並大大減低了脊髓灰質炎作為一種威脅公共健康的風險。索爾克也幫助發明瞭流感疫苗，並為發現愛滋病（Acquired Immure Deficiency Syndrome，簡稱為AIDS）疫苗而工作。

爾克出生於紐約市，1939年從紐約大學（New York University）獲得醫學博士學位。1944～47年，他服務於密西根州大學公共衛生學院（University of Michigan School of Public Health）的醫學系，1947～63年，在匹茲堡大學的醫學院（University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine）。1963年，他成為索爾克生物學研究協會（Salk Institute for Biological Studies）的會長和會員。這個研究中心以他的名字命名，坐落於加利福尼亞（California）聖地牙哥（San Diego）拉霍亞（La Jolla）地區。