Jonas Salk Essay

Great Essays
Success and failure are common encounters that many people face and it should not be a stopping point for one to continue to achieve a goal. While many American icons come face to face with this conflict, the end result is a person, an icon that has made a positive impact on their surroundings, which their struggles are often overlooked. Although they may hit a few bumps along the way, the end result of their achievement is what is left to be discussed all over the world. Jonas Salk is one of those figures that can be greatly considered an American icon. Born on October 28, 1914, in New York City, Jonas Salk was the oldest of three siblings and also the first one to attend college and receive a medical degree (“Jonas Salk”). His father and …show more content…
Salk thought to create an inactive form of the virus, and hypothesized that this “killed virus” will enable the body to grow antibodies to fight against the virus and help the body build/strengthen immunity (“Jonas Salk”). It was intelligent of him to even consider testing this out because it was a huge risk and could have potentially ended in an unwanted and unlikely result. He began his experiment on sets of monkey kidney tissue with the obtained live virus, and then would exterminate it with …show more content…
Salk even had the nerve and was brave enough to test his new vaccine on his family. He was certain that it was ready for use, “It is nearly certain that Salk’s success can be largely credited to his unwavering belief that his vaccine would work” (Pallansch 4). Polio has affected the public worldwide, but because of Salk’s confident remark and development, the vaccine has become issued to millions of patients, where most too all survived the fatal virus, making him an icon that will forever be memorialized for his original

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