51 Years Ago In Time

A year before the polio vaccine was deemed safe and effective, the start of testing by its developer, DR. JONAS SALK, was already being followed closelyby TIME, among others.

This spring, Dr. Salk's vision and his delicate laboratory procedures and logarithmic calculations are to be put to the test. Beginning next month in the South and working North ahead of the polio season, the vaccine that Salk has devised and concocted will be shot into the arms of 500,000 to 1,000,000 youngsters ... In a typical vaccination program at Colfax School in Pittsburgh, jabbering youngsters trooped by classes to the kindergarten room where Dr. Salk's assistants had set up desks and chairs beside tables loaded with labeled test tubes, vaccine bottles and stacks of hypodermic needles ... Most children let out an "Oh!" or "Ow!" and marched off, self-consciously proud, to another room where a nurse watched their reactions. One of the commonest: "Why, I didn't even cry!" TIME, March 29, 1954