January 10, 2021
A
rsenal Elementary School’s gym was set up with three tables and several medical workers standing behind them that February morning. About 20 newspaper reporters, two news photographers and a TV video cameraman hovered in the background.
Dr. Jonas Salk prepares to draw blood from Arthur Donahoo of Washington, Pa., as part of the polio vaccine testing in the early 1950s. (Post-Gazette Archives)
Second- and third- graders filed up to the tables, first-graders trailing behind. At one table, a wide-eyed boy offered his arm. A doctor and a nurse, both women, spoke soothingly as they found a vein, took blood from his arm, then injected him with a red liquid. He didn’t shed a tear or make a sound.