Sabin Develops an Oral Polio Vaccine
At a glance:
- Series: Great Events from History II: Science and Technology Series
- Categories: Science, Medicine, Health
- Subcategories: Biology, Biologists, Scientists, Epidemics, Diseases
- Curriculum: American History 1951-present
- Geographical Location: Ohio
- Date: 1957
Article abstract: Sabin developed a polio vaccine consisting of weakened strains of poliovirus, which, when eaten, caused a harmless infection in the gut and stimulated long-lasting immunity but did not cause paralytic disease.
Summary of Event
Almost a century ago, the first major poliomyelitis (polio) epidemic was recorded. Thereafter, epidemics of increasing frequency and severity struck the industrialized world. By the 1950’s, as many as sixteen thousand individuals, most of them children, were being paralyzed by the disease each year.
...[The entire page is 2260 words long]
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