Summary Of Jonas Salk: Conquering Polio

The book Jonas Salk : Conquering Polio tells about Jonas Salk’s life, childhood, education, and the time he spent working on a vaccine for Polio. I chose this book because I did not know much about this subject and I am also interested in history. From a very young age Jonas Salk was pushed by his parents to do the very best that he can do in school. Jonas listened to his parents and pushed him self hard in school. His hard work combined with his intelligence allowed Jonas
Salk to skip multiple grades and graduated at sixteen years old. Jonas had few friends growing up, but he was very close to his younger brother, Lee, and his cousin Helen. Jonas Salk attended the City College of New York. Originally he majored in law and his goal was to become a lawyer. However, later in college he took one of his first science courses and immediately loved it. Jonas then took more and more classes and eventually switched majors from law to medicine. Later in College Jonas took a year off to study biochemistry in a lab as an intern. Jonas Salk graduated with a degree in medicine.
He was hired by the U.S. military to create a vaccine for influenza. In World War 1 the influenza was one of the leading causes of deaths in soldiers so the army did not want any more outbreaks in their ranks. In 1938 Jonas Salk and Professor Thomas Francis created the first successful influenza vaccine. After Jonas finished his work with Professor Thomas Francis, he received his own lab for research where he can be in charge. Unfortunately, he was not given what he expected. Jonas was given a small basement in an old hospital. It had outdated equipment and a poor layout. This did not stop Jonas. He campaigned for grants and donations to slowly modernize his