Medical Mythmaking Splendid Solution:
Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio
By Jeffrey Kluger
Putnam, 2004, $25.95 Polio: An American Story
By David M. Oshinsky
Oxford University Press, 2005, $30.00 April 12 was the day, 50 years ago, that the U.S. Public Health Service licensed the killed-virus vaccine against poliomyelitis developed by Jonas Salk. In the decades since, a great myth has grown to dominate the popular imagination. Its name is "The Conquest of Polio," and Salk is its hero.

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