Jonas Salk: A Life

Chosen as New York Times Book Review "100 Notable Books of 2015""This is science writing at its best."--New York Times Book Review"Remarkable, warts-and-all biographysweeping and sympathetic narrative."--Wall Street Journal"InsightfulWith an unerring sense of pace, Jacobsrelates the story of this complex man and his remarkable life as a scientific pioneer and a popular icon."--Chicago Tribune"Fills a gap worth filling."--Washington Post"An extraordinarily rich biography of the doctor Americans adored and all but regarded as a saintJacobs makes a convincing case that Salk was a shy man who never succeeded in making the scientific or personal connections that could bring happiness, but his idealism proved a boon to mankind."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review"A treasure trove of facts and storiesRecommended to readers of scientific biographies and those interested in the practice of science in America."--Library Journal"The story of Jonas Salk is an endlessly fascinating one and in Charlotte Jacobs's capable hands this will be a winner and an important book."--Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone and Professor and Doctor of Medicine, Stanford University School of MedicineFeatured in Health Affairs

is the Ben and A. Charlotte D. Jess Shenson Professor of Medicine (Emerita) at Stanford University. Jacobs, M.D. She has served as Senior Associate Dean and as Director of the Clinical Cancer Center, and is the author of Henry Kaplan and the Story of Hodgkin's Disease.

Even before success catapulted him into the limelight, Salk was an inscrutable man disliked by many of his peers. Despite his incredible success in developing the polio vaccine, Salk was ostracized by his fellow scientists, who accused him of failing to give proper credit to other researchers and scorned his taste for media attention. "The worst tragedy that could have befallen me was my success," Salk later said. When a waiting world learned on April 12, 1955, that Jonas Salk had successfully created a vaccine to prevent poliomyelitis, he became a hero overnight. "I knew right a

""An enigmatic man"" according to Daniel Putman. These are the words Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs uses to describe Salk at the end of this biography and I could not agree more. Who exactly was Jonas Salk? Rarely has a scientist had as much information about him or her available to the public yet left so ambiguous an image. On the one hand, as Jacobs points out many times, Salk was a deeply genuine human being, brilliant in his single-minded approach to a scientific problem, empathetic. Rich Adler said Jacobs has produced as excellent a biography as I suspect could be written. I was one of the "polio pioneers," receiving the shot (placebo or vaccine?) at my elementary school. In retrospect, I suspect I was already immune. I had previously shared a lollipop with a playmate who several days later developed polio. For my parents' generation, Salk was a true American hero, to say nothing of his being a Jewish role model. Jacobs has produced as excellent a biography as I suspect could be written. Drawing exten. The Polio Vaccine Pioneer The stirring backstory of Jonas Salk is here explored in depth by the skilled pen of Charlotte Jacobs, who, through extensive research and dozens of interviews, casts Salk as a fascinating, strong-willed, and multifaceted individual who is nevertheless haunted by detractors and fellow investigators possibly motivated, in part, by professional envy. Jacobs' writing is sensitive, compelling, and masterful. Salk's ambition, drive, intu