Albert Sabin developed the oral polio vaccine that has made it possible to get within a hair’s breadth of eliminating polio from the planet. How this medical miracle evolved includes Sabin’s adventures spanning four decades and four continents while dealing with other scientists and leaders with a single-minded determination to conquer polio.
At Sabin’s 80th birthday celebration in 1986, he admitted without feigned modesty that over half the world’s population had protective elements in their bodies because of him. His oral polio vaccine kept most from getting a disease that used to be personified as “The Crippler” in frightening pre-matinee newsreels. After seeing it, children had nightmares, and parents gave money to the March of Dimes.

A consequence of his vaccine’s success is that a couple of generations of people have little knowledge of polio or the race to develop a vaccine against it. They might be surprised to learn that according to polls conducted after World War II, only nuclear war scared their parents and grandparents more than the prospect of a polio epidemic.