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Volume 352:1408-1410 April 7, 2005 Number 14
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April 12, 1955 — Tommy Francis and the Salk Vaccine
Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D.

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April 12, 1955, was supposed to be Tommy Francis's day. At 10:20 a.m., the distinguished epidemiologist was scheduled to conduct an international press conference in Rackham Auditorium at the University of Michigan. The topic was the field trial he had just completed — the largest of its kind ever — evaluating the efficacy of the poliovirus vaccine developed by Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburgh.

It is hardly hyperbole to note that the speech by Dr. Thomas Francis, Jr., was eagerly awaited by most of the world.1 Few diseases were capable of arousing more fear than poliomyelitis. Almost every . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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Dr. Markel is professor of the history of medicine and professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases at the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, where he directs the Center for the History of Medicine.



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