See Also:
Beginning of a FAMOUS Hero: The Louis Pasteur Story.
Life Lesson #89 – Make Things Happen.
Even when he was a little boy growing up in New York City, Jonas Salk had an attitude of excellence. He did his best at everything. He did his best in school, and he made excellent grades. He also did his best when he played! Jonas and his friends didn’t have money for real baseball equipment, so they used a broom handle for a bat and anything they could find for bases. Jonas loved baseball, but his main interest was reading books. Because of his excellent grades, he was chosen to go to a special high school for outstanding students. Before he was even sixteen years old, he was ready for college. And once again, he was an excellent student.
In college he began to have a great interest in science, and by the time Jonas graduated, he had decided to become a medical scientist. He wanted to find ways to protect people from diseases. At first, he worked to discover a medicine that would keep soldiers from getting the flu during World War II. And that’s exactly what he did!
Dr. Salk then turned his attention to a disease called polio. If polio did not kill the person who had it, he or she almost always was left crippled. After a lot of work and research, Dr. Salk did discover a way to give people shots that would immunize them against polio. In 1955, it was announced to the world that his vaccine did prevent polio. And Jonas Salk that little boy from New York, who chose excellence in everything he did, became a HERO!
– Jim Lord